Taipei Times
Date: Apr 11, 2016
By: Chiu Yen-ling / Staff reporter

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers are re-proposing a draft bill on refugees.

Lawmakers tabled a draft bill on refugees in the previous legislative session, aiming to address international human rights, but it met opposition from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus that cost the bill a chance to be discussed and reviewed.

DPP legislators Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) and Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) have each proposed a version of the draft legislation on refugees, which have been referred for further deliberation in the Internal Administration Committee, and the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.

The Ministry of the Interior in 2005 put forward a draft refugee act, but it failed to secure passage in the legislature.

In the previous legislative session, which commenced in 2012, the Executive Yuan’s version of the draft legislation excluded Chinese and Tibetan refugees seeking asylum from the act. Hsiao and other DPP lawmakers tabled their own version, including such groups of political refugees, but it was not put to committee review.
In 2013, a version of the draft act was proposed by lawmakers across party     [FULL  STORY]