The Executive Yuan Council today approved a draft amendment to the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act changing the procedures for missing persons presumed dead. It will be sent to the Legislature for deliberation.
The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) stated that under Article 47-1 of the act currently in force, "when a person is missing due to disaster, the prosecution institution, after detailed investigations, shall issue the death certificate based on its authority or the application made by the inheriting person, if there is a sufficient fact to acknowledge that the person died due to disaster even though the body has not been found yet."
The MOI believes this procedure provides insufficient protection to the victim and his next of kin and could violate their judicial rights. Therefore, the ministry drafted an amendment to this article, the major points of which are as follows:
When a person is missing due to disaster, if there is sufficient evidence to acknowledge that the person died due to that disaster even though his body has not been found yet, the court should establish the person's death and time of death following a claim by a related person or a prosecution institution. This claim must be made within a year of the disaster. The time of death will be formally established by the court.
For matters regarding the determination of death and time of death, as well as subsequent revocation or alteration of the same, which are not stipulated by this law, the regulations of the Family Affairs Act on declaration of death will be applied.
Anyone permitted to make a claim of a missing person's death to the court should report his or her claim in a bulletin or newspaper for between three weeks and two months, so that anyone with knowledge of whether the disappeared is alive or dead may report to the court within that time period.