With respect to this longtime dispute in the legal system, the Ministry of
Health and Welfare has agreed to amend to the law, but has yet to face or solve
the problem proactively. The court judgments therefore lack provision of the
legal certainty and predictability for the food dealers. Given this, the Ministry
of Health and Welfare should discuss the solution promptly to settle the dispute
Article 17 Privacy and Reputation/Credit Protection
Privacy and Reputation
116. To punish with an order to submit to physical examination is an order that
infringes upon the sense of privacy and intactness of the body; it is an order
which may only be rendered when complies with the principle of legal
reservation and proportionality required under Article 23 of the Constitution.
On February 20, 2017, 53 packs of amphetamines were found at Ching-ChuanKang Air Force Base. To clear the reputation of the military and respond to
public opinion, all those on the base, including 2,554 military officers and
soldiersof the 427th Squadron, as well as dozens of contract workers, were
ordered to take urine tests. Clearly, this was in contravention of Article 33 of
the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act, Point 3 of the Regulations Governing
Drug Abuse Urine Testing Operations for National Military Officers and
Soldiers, and a response that was out of proportion. Of those tested, ten
individuals who tested positive for level-1 drug opioid metabolites (including
morphine and codeine) were handed over to the legal authorities by the
military police. The investigation results released a few months later by the
prosecutor found that these ten individuals tested positive for drugs simply
because they were taking medications for the common cold. Such findings still
could not clear the public doubts about drug abuse in the military. There is also
no way to seek a remedy for the damage to personal reputation of those
individuals. The Ministry of National Defense should draw a lesson from this
case, and carefully review the urine testing mechanism applied to the military
forces, so as to comply with the law and human rights. Upon investigation and
subsequent follow-up by the Control Yuan, the Ministry of National Defense
reflected that, when deciding the response in similar cases in the future, it
would take into account factors such as “necessity,” “expectation of reasonable
privacy,” “public interest,” and “national defense security” with due diligence,
to adhere to the intent of human rights protection under the Constitution.
117. Following resolution of a complaint of sexual harassment in 2017, and in order
to prevent similar cases from arising in the future, the Taitung Drug Abuse
Treatment Center installed a video surveillance system in its office and at the
entrance. However, this may have invaded the the privacy of the Center’s
officers and employees by continuously watching, monitoring, eavesdropping
on them on the office premises and therefore violated the provisions of privacy
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