Hello everyone. Now let us begin with the discussion of the first subsection, Taiwan's Constitutional Bill of Rights and Interpretation of Unenumerated Rights. Taiwan's constitution was not a constitution of its own, Taiwan was actually under Japan's colonization when the republic of China, ROC was founded in 1912 in China. After World War II, Taiwan became under the control of the ROC government. However, having lost to the Chinese Communist Party in the civil war, ensuing from World War II, the ROC government retreated to Taiwan in 1949. Prior to ROC governments retreat to Taiwan, The Constituent National Assembly was already convened in Nanking, China and adopted the R0C Constitution on December 12th 1946. The constitution was then promulgated in January 1947, and became effective on December 25, of the same year. Ever since then, this constitution, the ROC Constitution, only applies to Taiwan. And when we discuss Taiwan's Constitutional Bill of Rights, we mean that chapter two of the ROC Constitution, that lists numerous rights of people's rights, people's duties, people's rights and duty, as well as general clause and limitation clause. First, there are many fundamental rights and freedoms recognized in ROC Constitution, chapter two, article 7, recognize the principle of equality. Article 8, provides the protection of the physical freedom. Article 9, guarantee that only military personnel will have to be tried in military tribunal, article 10, protects migration, freedom. Article 11, the people's freedom of speech, article 12, freedom of secrecy of correspondence, article 13, people have the freedom of religious belief. Then, we come to article 14, guaranteeing people's freedom of assembly, article 15, guaranteeing property rights, right to existence. Article 16, the right of presenting petitions, lodging complaints, instituting legal proceedings. Article 17, guaranteeing that people have the right of election, recall initiative, and referendum. Article 18, guaranteeing people's right to hold public office, and right to engage in public service works. So, these are the rights and fundamental freedoms guaranteed in Taiwan's constitutional bill of rights. Following these provisions, we have seen some of those rights, as well as duties, for example, article 19, people shall have the duty of paying taxes. Article 20, people shall have the duty of performing military service, in accordance with law, article 21, people have the right and duty of receiving citizens education, without a surprise. So article 22, all other freedoms, if not listed in the above list, would then possibly included under the Constitution, article 23, serving as the limitation clause to those rights listed above. We just go over very quickly, to the bill of rights in the ROC Constitution. Do you think it's a very short list, or is pretty lengthy? Do you find these fundamental rights and freedoms enough? Do you think is a list very brief, or kind of elaborative? Now over the years, the Constitutional Court of Taiwan has to render many interpretations, to supplement these existing list of rights. For those already on the list, they are enumerated rights, for those not yet on the list, they are what we called, unenumerated rights. So, the Constitutional Court of Taiwan has provided many interpretations, to add, many fundamental freedoms and rights to this list. In other words, they have provided many unenumerated rights, by the Constitutional Court's interpretation. In the following slides, we are going to show you these interpretations of unenumerated rights, provided by Taiwan's Constitutional Court, all through the general clause, article 22. So, these are the examples of these rights. Now, two years ago, Taiwanese Constitutional Court has rendered a now globally famous decision, to confirming same sex couple will have equal right to marriage. This was interpreted through article 22 of the constitution, which is not enumerated in the constitution. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court added this marriage equality right, into the constitution, and in what we called JY interpretation number 748. There are other occasions where Constitutional Court also added these unenumerated rights, for example, the right of an individual to select his or her own name. This is again, not a right listed in the constitution, but the Constitutional Court found it very important and essential, for any individual to certainly have the right to name their own names. There's also in other occasion, where Constitutional Court recognize other unenumerated rights. For example, in JY interpretation, number 689, the Constitutional Court found that, when anyone would be checked by police, they will have to be having their own freedom to not to be checked, or to have their own will in deciding their own actions. In another occasion, the Constitutional Court also recognized the fundamental freedom of sexual behavior, or the freedom of sexual autonomy. In recent years, the court has recognized these freedom, or these fundamental rights of sexual freedom, is inseparably related to the personality of individuals. And since the recognition of personality of individuals, is such critical and fundamental to any individuals of their own fundamental rights, the recognition of these rights, or the court, will have to be adding this right into the list of the bill of rights. There are also other occasions, where the court recognized those very familiar rights and freedoms, but those rights and freedoms are not listed in the Constitution. For example, freedom of contract, freedom from bodily and mental harm, right to privacy, and right of personality. These are examples of the rights, where people in other countries will have those rights, clearly guaranteed in their own constitution. But because ROC Constitution was promulgated and enacted in 1947, as we just explained, and ROC Constitution, does not have a very updated and sufficient lists of fundamental rights. Therefore, you require a lot of words, and efforts from the Constitutional Court, to update, or in the sense to add those fundamental rights and freedoms to the list. The other, as certainly not the last, fundamental freedoms of unenumerated rights, will be people's freedom to adopt children. As you can see, these rights or freedom, will be very much important for later on same sex couple, where now they have the rights to marry and whether or not they will have also fundamental rights to adopt children, to have the family of their own, this will be critical to that. Last but not least, I would like you to reflect further, that facing such a short and concise constitutional bill of rights, they require a lot of addition from the Constitutional Court, to interpret those unenumerated rights, requires further substantial addition to a lot of rights to this list. What actions or strategies, could civil society undertake? If you are not satisfied with the list, if you want to add further rights or freedoms to the list, what will you do, and what would any NGOs do, given this situation? Can you think of any possible strategies?
