In the early 1990s, massive student demonstrations began calling for the abolition of a unique but largely redundant organ of Taiwan's government, the National Assembly.
Now, nearly a decade later, the organ is still around, and with an even broader range of powers -- all given to it to handle the highly technical and complex task of amending the 1947 Constitution to suit modern Taiwanese society.
And the dissatisfaction with it is just as intense.
"It's a monster, a cancer of Taiwan's democratization," said Chiu Hei-yuan (
"They are a group of people with little knowledge of the Constitution but, ironically, they are in charge of amending it," Chiu said. "Constitution-amendment is such a complicated and important task that it has to be done by people of vision and professionalism."
The public seems to agree. According to a poll conducted recently by TVBS, nearly half of respondents supported the idea of abolishing the Assembly.
Under the Constitution, the Assembly and the Legislative Yuan are two independent organs which together fill the role of a central parliament.
In reality, the legislature deals with all legislation except that which amends the Constitution, so it is hardly surprising that support has been growing for the Assembly's abolition among taxpayers annoyed by reports of how much public money is spent on it.
It wasn't always this way, of course as, until 1992, the Assembly fulfilled the all-important task of electing the President.
Since it gave up this power, however, with the direct public election of the President, the Assembly has become increasingly redundant. It still has a few other minor powers, such as giving consent to the appointments of the presidents of the Judicial Yuan, Control Yuan, and Examination Yuan, but these are largely ceremonial. In theory, it also has the power to recall the President and Vice President, but this has become an unthinkable option since direct elections began in 1996.
Yet despite all this, its one remaining major responsibility gives the Assembly the power to greatly disrupt the political process in Taiwan. And disrupt it the Assembly has in recent years, as its members pursued their own special interests as part of the wider picture of the struggle between the DPP and KMT for power.
Last year's controversial amendment, which extended the Assembly's term by two-and-a-half years, is but the most egregious example of the self-fattening for which it has become renowned.
And even though the debate rages on over the Council of Grand Justices' decision on Friday to strike down the amendment, it seems highly unlikely that the Assembly will be stopped completely in its tracks.
There have also been the inevitable sideshows over the years as the Assembly struggled with the legislature for a greater share of the national limelight.
Sometimes this fight for prestige degenerated into intense verbal -- and even physical -- sparring.
There was one occasion when lawmakers called the Assembly delegates "cockroaches," and the delegates struck back through the media by calling the lawmakers "rubbish."
This would escalate to more substantial threats from time to time, as the rubbish would threaten to cut the budget of the cockroaches and the cockroaches would threaten to cut short the tenure of the rubbish.
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