Deal done on National Assembly

The DPP's National Assembly caucus convener Chen Chin-teh, second left, and caucus leader Liu I-teh, second right, announce their stance on the National Assembly yesterday. PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

National Assembly (NA) caucus leaders from both major political parties struck what could be a landmark deal last night, after reaching consensus over the abolition of the Assembly.

The two sides signed a joint declaration last night, after spending two hours in intensive negotiations over the divisive issue.

In the declaration, the parties' representatives agreed to begin a signature drive in the Assembly that would request the president to convene an extraordinary constitutional amendment session of the Assembly, aimed at abolishing or minimizing its current powers.

"Abolishing the Assembly is the consensus of the people," said DPP caucus leader Chen Chin-teh (陳金德) last night. "We will try to accomplish this as soon as possible -- before May 6."

The current flurry of activity concerns the results of a controversial decision made by the National Assembly in September last year, when it passed a constitutional amendment extending its own current term by two-and-a-half years.

At the same time, a further amendment was passed that abolished future elections in favor of a system of proportional representation, based on the results of national elections.

The move was seen as a compromise between the DPP -- which has called for the Assembly's abolition for many years -- and the KMT, which has sought to marginalize its constitutional powers.

On Friday, however, the Council of Grand Justices ruled that the amendments were unconstitutional, ordering the Assembly to hold elections on May 6. They were oringinally supposed to have been held at the same time as the presidential election.

The Central Election Commission is still considering the case, and has not made a formal decision.

At the same time, many NA deputies expressed anger at the Council ruling.

"The Council has extended its powers and holding another election would only cause further disputes," said KMT deputy member Hsieh Zui-chi (謝瑞智).

"Our purpose is not to stop the election," said the DPP's Chen Chin-teh. "We want to continue our efforts at abolishing the National Assembly.

"Therefore, this extraordinary session must be held before May 6, and then we will try to pass a `sunset' article to put an end to the Assembly, on Jan. 31, 2002."

KMT deputies, meanwhile, said they agreed in the declaration to trim the Assembly's constitutional amendment powers.

"We want the two parties' leaders to discuss the mechanics of this within the next two days," said KMT caucus leader Tsai Cheng-yuan (蔡正元).

The DPP's Chen said the KMT had at first refused to sign the agreement, because they had insisted only on mitigating the Assembly's powers.

But, after a break in the meeting, KMT representatives had apparently contacted the party's central leadership and had extracted their agreement on the issue.

"At the start, we believed there were two major ways of doing things: either to rewrite most of the Constitution in order to delete all references to the Assembly, or to take away its powers, while keeping only its structure," said the KMT's Hsieh.

"We need to have a good consensus to start with, then we can get down to the real issues in the next, special session."