Seriously, we cannot contact the lawyers before we have founded the association.
If we wanted to put out a call now . . . . . and/or interview people who were willing and able to help foreigners with difficult legal problems (involuntary manslaughter, drug dealing, extortion, kidnapping, bribery, unlawful arrest . . . . etc. criminal offenses ), there is no way we could do that now since the association is not up and running yet.
Over the past year, under various circumstances and in various locations, I have probably met two dozen local lawyers. When I ask them if they could recommend English speaking local lawyers who could help foreigners with their problems . . . . they all wanted full details of what I was proposing. Since I didn’t have the details, so I couldn’t arrange any meetings with appropriate people . . . . . .
There are always Taiwanese lawyers doing voluntary work, ranging from private law offices allocating two lawyers on weekends, city parliamentarians run free legal services provided by volunteer lawyers in the evenings at these local members’ offices, Judicial Reform Foundation certainly has a team of them (especially in criminal offences), each law school has a legal service center with senior law students supervised by their lecturers who are licensed practitioners, there are existing services available to locals, so now that we know foreigners do have same problems with probably more cases on visa issues and some others, the mechanism that is required is to link up these services to foreigners and that mechanism should be, at the minimum, assistance in interpreting and translating. Perhaps this is something already being considered by the Human Rights Group which Mr. Kennedy is appointed as an advisor for. The other issue is that, every employer of a laborer from Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand is required to pay a levy to the Taiwan Government, the levy is to contribute to the social welfare facilities (there are divisions set up to cater for laborers from these countries within the Labor Affairs Council) and the expenses necessarily incurred by other government agency for it is foreseeable that there would be social problems created by the importation of labor from these countries. Perhaps if many English teachers also have problems that would result in cost to Taiwan govenrment in rendering assistance, then the employers should also contribute to the system by paying a levy whenever they hire a foreign teacher.
on the issue of English speaking lawyers, probably 50% of the Taipei Bar Association members have a masters degree from an English speaking jurisdiction and they all have reasonably good proficiency in English, at least in written English. In fact, certain matters such as visa requirements and labor disputes that relate to government agencies need not necessarily involve lawyer all the way through, these legal services can direct the complainant to the right administrative channel and find the officer in charge to speak to. One thing about Taiwan government is that they are not that big on inter-agency coordination, nor service-oriented, customer-friendly, efficient, etc. It always helps if a lawyer is involved at the beginning so that the agency is aware that the complainant knows his/her right and make that clear in the beginning that the agency should be the one responsible for the subject matter. Of course if the matter involves civil or criminal issues, professional legal assistance is definitely required all the way through.
Schlegemilch, the claim that 50% of the Taipei Bar Association can, in any way, handle english is absurd.
Those LLMs (master degree in law) which you mention are simply “for sale” at various law schools back in America. I know it well because USD (University of San Diego) School of Law (where I went and a “fine” ABA approved law school btw) used to sell LLMs in Comparative Law to any Asian whose check cleared the bank. It is a widespread money making practice among American universities.
SDSU (San Diego State University), where I went to undergrad, had a whole section of the campus (north side, near my dorm) devoted to “international students”. And the goal there was the same: sell BA and BS degrees to Asians whose checks cleared the cashiers office. It was a big, big money maker for SDSU as the “international students” tuition stayed in the SDSU coffers as opposed to going into the general Cal-State fund.
Schlegelmilch, I do not mean to pry, and it ain’t my business, but are you an attorney? The reason I ask is I am curious as to what lead you to the information in the above two posts.
Oh, one other thing, I took a look at the posts in this topic and it seems like folks are talking about two kind of different things.
an advocacy group which represts “foreigner’s interest”, a kind of “Foreigners Union”
simply a referral service to match up foreigners and local “pseudo-english speaking” attorneys.
I do not see any need for number 2. Community Services Center, AIT and the various Catholic organizations all have ways to connect up foreigners and local legal “talent” (cough, cough).
As to number one, it is unworkable for these reasons:
a. insufficient stable foreigner population in Taiwan
b. no common ground
None of this has anything to do with human rights, this idea, as near as I can tell, is really for a union or PAC (political action committee) for foreigners.
Sorry Shlegelmilch, but I agree with Brian: fewer than half of Taiwanese lawyers have a degree from the states and very few write passably in English (although some do). I previously served as an editor in Taiwan’s largest law firm, which has almost 500 employees, and there were quite a few lawyers who had US degrees. But almost all of those were one-year LLM degrees, and how much can one learn in one year? After all, many lawyers in the states are crappy writers ("…wherefore, the party of the second party, vis a vis, the party of…") It takes a lifetime to learn to write well.
I disagree with Brian though that neither option 1 nor 2 would do any good. I think either one could definitely help some people. The people Hartzell’s thinking of helping are mostly poor and confused, the kind of people who need help the most but that lawyers generally aren’t much interested in helping. Anyone offering such folks accurate guidance or advice would be providing a valuable service.
But Hartzell definitely needs to determine his focus and write a mission statement. It’s not good enough to say “we’ll serve those who we choose to serve.” To lead a mission, and get others to join you, you need to know where you’re going and be able to express it clearly.
The PAC is nebulous like FAPA. The idea that the aliens have no rights is something the “American-in-name-only” human rights lawyer has never truly advocated. For example, his message is: I hate gook lawyers, I hate Americans, I hate, I hate, I hate… Poison tongues will put inked quills into your back even if they are English-speakers.
There is a Taiwanese political party already formed by the USA-Taiwan Commonwealth Organization. I would perhaps like to Richard doing an aliens rights organization for those non-voting ARC residents in Taiwan. The common ground here is that the more negative anti-Americanism is thwarted from the outset. If you are an anti-American idealogue, you will find political solidarity with the ROC mainlanders or the French.
Otherwise, thought more about renouncing your US citizenship lately?
whether the attorneys’ English is up to your specific standard is not the issue, as they are already handling cases for foreigners here, both foreign companies and individuals, with the assistance of (close to) native-english speaker who serve as editor/secretary and that is as good as you can get in this jurisdiction, sure, in the states, there are native chinese speaking lawyers with US bar license, but there is a much higher percentage of chinese immigrants in the states than that of english speaking immigrants here. if you are after native-English speaking attorneys with taiwan license (i mean the real bar license, not those special “foreign lawyers’ license”), there isn’t one. the closest one can get to having taiwan lawyers with english speaking services is through referral services, and you are right, each embassy/rep office/catholic churches already does referral services. also, one really needs to ascertain exactly what the demands are, who the prospective clients are, nature of the majority of the matters, etc. before launching into forming a group/association.
I have been a businessman and a teacher. We have a lot of the same legal problems. The first is the language barrier, the second is that very few people can actually get the law on this rock to work.
My suggestion would be something along the lines of a legal guidance center. Not just a lot of English speaking lawyers trying to fight it out in court but legal experts well versed in the pitfalls of working in Taiwan. If the only purpose of this organization is to represent people in court, then a lot of people are going to end up in court. What we need is a road map to tell us how to stay out of trouble in the first place. Professionals are needed with experience that can look at our contracts, individual work agreements and then do something about the problems before they arise.
[quote=“Wangbing”]The PAC is nebulous like FAPA. The idea that the aliens have no rights is something the “American-in-name-only” human rights lawyer has never truly advocated. For example, his message is: I hate gook lawyers, I hate Americans, I hate, I hate, I hate… Poison tongues will put inked quills into your back even if they are English-speakers.
There is a Taiwanese political party already formed by the USA-Taiwan Commonwealth Organization. I would perhaps like to Richard doing an aliens rights organization for those non-voting ARC residents in Taiwan. The common ground here is that the more negative anti-Americanism is thwarted from the outset. If you are an anti-American idealogue, you will find political solidarity with the ROC mainlanders or the French.
Otherwise, thought more about renouncing your US citizenship lately?
I cannot agree with Boomer more on “if it’s only court work, then a lot of people will end up in court”. however, there is a difference between English teaher and businessman as a client. Just like the Centre’s counselling services, from what i know from two years ago, they charge clients based on the amount of money the client makes. for a businessman asking for legal advice about contracts, he or she would be expected to pay the market rate for a lawyer, as for english teacher who is presumably at a disadvantaged position being an employee and a foreign worker (no offence to english teachers), they are more likely to be considered to receive (partial) exemption from legal fees. from my understanding of this group that Mr. Hartzell was talking about, it is more for people who cannot afford to pay the standard legal fees. I also agree with the “road map” and the “guide book” concept, as the english speaking foreign workers here do share a great deal of problems in common and these problems can be addressed at once, with the information being updated on regular basis of course. again, this is something that needs collective effort, at least from government side (source of information etc.), from corporations (sponsorship) and from advocates of the foreign workers who are the prospective readers/recipients of such information. again, would this be a good initiative for Mr. Kennedy to take up with the human rights foundation already formed and endorsed by the government?
Last night, in the China Times EVneing News, China Times Express i think it is called, there was a BIGGGGGGGGGGGggg article about our Richard, photo and loads of column inches. What was the article about Richard? Cool.
I cannot read Chinese just saw yr photo. i think it said this American is fighting to make taiwan part of America. right?
please tell us. and the photo was nice. nice hair!
More than five people, I should think. But I agree that there are big problems with conceptualizing this venture.
Okay, say you have NT 50,000 in your pocket (dues from ten members, or twenty, or however many). This buys you x lawyer-hours. (Is that what we’re spending them on–lawyer-hours?) Meanwhile, different members may have different ideas about what the lawyer should do with his x hours. How would the group decide between:
(1) Something lofty relating to Taiwanese sovereignty or the San Francisco Peace Treaty, etc.
(2) Sue the police to make them change their regulations that let them kick us out of the country without a trial
(3) Lobby or sue to let holders of another nationality become Taiwan citizens, without giving up their previous nationality
(4) Lay the smack down on the buxibans that unilaterally change the terms of their agreements with their foreign teachers
(5) Figure out how foreigners can get credit cards and phone service on the same basis as the locals
(6) Reopen the Romanization debate
Since demand for legal services (especially free ones, i.e. ones sponsored by the group) promise to quickly overwhelm supply, how to choose priorities…? Vote? Have a lottery drawing?
Hey–THERE’s a great way to get publicity! A “win your human rights!” lottery! Get some nekkid women to do the drawing, and they’ll put you on the news for sure.
This is dead on SJ. Which raises the issue of how you will get people to give money in the first place unless the mission is defined (or unless we are simply to put our faith in Hartzel), which gets us back to square one.
Personally, I don’t see any violations of “Human Rights” in Taiwan. I
do however see all kinds of violations of “Human Rights/Constitutional
Rights” in the USA - anybody ever hear of the Patriot Act? As a
foreigner you shouldn’t have any “right” to vote or keep yourself from
getting deported if you break the law - if you want those rights become
a citizen.
The reason I love Taiwan is that we have economic freedom and low
taxes here; something the west lost long ago.
Taiwan: “love it or leave it” - isn’t that what you people always say?
You would have to be a blind idiot to make such a statement, you are also assuming everyone one else is as well.
[quote]
The reason I love Taiwan is that we have economic freedom and low
taxes here; something the west lost long ago.
Taiwan: “love it or leave it” - isn’t that what you people always say?[/quote]
I used to beleive that. Then they told me that I was not the father of my own children because they were born to an American father in Taiwan. If that wasn’t enough they now tell me that I must get my children a passport from the ROC for me to take them home.
I don’t love the ROC and I am not leaving Taiwan.
You would have to be a blind idiot to make such a statement, you are also assuming everyone one else is as well.
[quote]
The reason I love Taiwan is that we have economic freedom and low
taxes here; something the west lost long ago.
Taiwan: “love it or leave it” - isn’t that what you people always say?[/quote]
I used to beleive that. Then they told me that I was not the father of my own children because they were born to an American father in Taiwan. If that wasn’t enough they now tell me that I must get my children a passport from the ROC for me to take them home.
I don’t love the ROC and I am not leaving Taiwan.
How about this “Hate the R.O.C., but Love Taiwan”[/quote]
No, I am simply stating my opinion. I have in no way assumed anything about any other individual. I personally have never been denied a human right in Taiwan. Then again I do not think that Taiwan “owes”
me anything. What human rights have been denied to me in the last 12 years that I didn’t notice?? The right to a credit card - this is not a human right. The right to apply for citizenship w/o renouncing prior nationality - again not a human right. The right to a 6 year car licence - nope not a human right either. If you are not a citizen in this country then you must be a guest here. Your stay is allowed/tolerated by the authorities. If your a lousy guest I think Taiwan has every right in the world to show you the door.
If you don’t want to leave then stop bitching about the place. Nobody likes a whinner - we all know that
some simple things here can be a pain in the ass but that is one of the joys of living abroad. If you want everything like it is at home - maybe you need to go home. Cultural imperialism and abrasive manners / ways of going about things isn’t going to make you any friends.
Poison tongues will put inked quills into your back even if they are English-speakers.
Otherwise, thought more about renouncing your US citizenship lately?