President Ma Ying-jeou met with a delegation from the US National Association of Attorneys General at the Presidential Office on the morning of October 9 and extended a cordial welcome to the guests on behalf of the government and people of the ROC (Taiwan).
President Ma remarked that no other country, regardless whether operating under a continental law or common law regime, has anything comparable to the US attorney general system. Except for only a few states, the vast majority of state attorneys general are democratically elected. Therefore, the function of state attorneys general is not only to serve as a state government's legal counsel, but also to head up criminal investigations, he said. And unlike their counterparts in other nations, many state attorneys general go on to have an opportunity to serve as state governors. In some cases, state attorneys general are elected to serve in public office in the federal government. This is something that is not commonly seen in other nations, he said.
The president noted that the National Association of Attorneys General was founded over 100 years ago and the organization has a long history of interaction with the ROC, with visits made by personnel from each side to the other every year. President Ma commented that in 1994 he accepted an invitation from the organization to visit the United States and attended their annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. In addition to speeches and discussion of various topics during the conference, two extremely interesting activities were held, he said. One was a race to see who could run 5,000 meters the fastest, while the other was a race to determine the fastest swimmer in a 1,000 meter swim. The president said that the decision to hold these activities made a deep impression on him.
President Ma expressed his appreciation to the organization, noting that after a delegation that visited Taiwan last year returned home, they wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton supporting the signature of an extradition treaty between Taiwan and the United States. The president added that last year during the delegation's visit here, the ROC government and mainland China had still not made any progress on the issue of extradition. However in April of this year, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait inked an agreement on mutual judicial assistance. Under the pact, cooperative avenues are being established to extradite alleged criminals. President Ma stated that he mentioned this development in a variety of venues, and friends from America all expressed that the US side should follow this precedent and establish a similar system with Taiwan as soon as possible.
President Ma said that he approved the instruments of ratification of two United Nations (UN) human rights covenants on May 14, namely the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Even though Taiwan is not a member of the UN, the president said, this does not change its support for these two covenants. He stated that the government here was aware that even if the covenants were ratified, the UN would not accept the documents for depositing. The government, however, had already considered this likely outcome and made special provisions. The president explained that the Ministry of Justice specially drafted statutes governing the implementation of these two international human rights covenants, thereby making the covenants part of domestic law. President Ma said that in the future the government will carefully defend the standards set forth in these international human rights covenants and thus raise the standard of protection of human rights in Taiwan. President Ma expressed his confidence that this will make an important contribution to Taiwan's democratization.
President Ma said he hopes that the members of the delegation will take advantage of their visit to better understand the state of the judicial system in Taiwan. This is the most important link in the process of Taiwan's democratization, he said.