Thanks again for the further input, especially to Brian for tracking down those “historical” posts on the topic!
But on both counts I have to say Hartzell is wrong…
The five years does indeed start from the time of marriage. As explained in my last post, I originally believed the same interpretation that Hartzell mentioned in
[APRC status and foreign spouse
but apparently it’s not well supported…
As for the “two years rule”, both Law Art. 23 and IR Art. 40 are explicit, there is no room for interpretation there: one must apply for the PARC no later than 2 years after becoming eligible, i.e. if you continue (with the ARC, etc.) in Taiwan for 2 more years after filling either the 7-year period or the 5-year period for spouses, you would lose the right to apply for PARC.
Nonsensical? Yes. But also clear. A prime candidate for amendment, if such a thing is on the cards…
As for what happens if you were eligible through marriage, etc. and then lost that eligibilty, there is nothing in the law about any grace period, etc. of any length. Therefore, unless it is appearing is some other regulation (such as the elusive “Zuoye guiding”, etc.), it doesn’t exist, and nobody should act on the assumption they can use it…
To clarify jlikc’s situation, the law is clear that you can count all the time you lived legally in Taiwan after marriage. Thus, you should be eligible in Nov. 2006. There may be some fuzziness from the police as to what date they consider to be the start of your marriage:
- the date on your marriage certificate
- the date you registered your marriage at the household registration office (might be the same if you got married in Taiwan)
- the date you got your marriage-based ARC.
In principle, the marriage certificate should govern. Interpretation 2), however, might suit a local bureaucratic mind, so if it doesn’t make much difference, I would suggest waiting until that date was passed also, just to be sure. As for interpretation 3), it’s just plain incorrect: IR Art. 40 is explicit that that time can include either residency (i.e. holding an ARC ) or visiting. But it probably “makes sense” to some police people, so it wouldn’t be really surprising if you ran into that. Be prepared with a printout of IR Art. 40…