During informal group discussions this weekend, incoming Cabinet officials reached consensus on several important issues for future policies, including the establishment of an Anti-corruption Admin-istration (廉政署).
Minister of Justice-designate Chen Ting-nan (
According to the agreed proposal, the new administration under the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) will combine the current Anti-corruption Department (
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The anti-corruption body will establish branch offices in counties and cities throughout Taiwan.
More importantly, certain officials of the institution will have powers of search, seizure and arrest -- a proposal that has been criticized by several prosecutors and legal academics, who are worried that such a system could be harmful to human rights.
The new Cabinet members also reached a consensus about abolishing the election of township and village chiefs by revising all related laws to allow county commissioners and city mayors to appoint those officials.
Vice Minister of the Interior-designate Lee Yi-yang (
Representatives from all three major political parties, independent politicians and scholars in that meeting all agreed during the conference to abolish grassroots-level elections, partly to reduce the waste of resources, but also because the local administrations are hotbeds of "black gold" corrup-tion.
Minister of the Interior-designate Chang Po-ya (
"Whether it is desirable to readjust Taiwan's administrative regions cannot be decided only by the central government," Chang told reporters, "the central government has to learn how to respect local residents' voices."
Taking the Taichung region as an example, Chang said that residents of Taichung City did not like the idea of joining their city with Taichung County to form a single administrative region.
"The most important thing a new government can do is to equally divide all financial resources to give all administrative regions abundant money," Chang said
President-elect Chen Shui-bian (
While Chang reaffirmed that she was opposed to the consolidation of city and county administrations, she admitted that this was a minority opinion.
Her deputy -- who was also the former spokesman of Chen's campaign office, said that they would try to figure out a working plan as soon as possible.
Other matters on which the incoming Cabinet reached consensus yesterday included include the statutory exclusion of gangsters from participating in elections, the gradual implementation of President-elect Chen's social welfare platform, a reduction in the number of foreign laborers admitted to Taiwan, and a reduction in the length of the working week to 44 hours within two years.
New cabinet members had a two-day orientation period on Yangmingshan (
While agreement was reached on implementing these measures, they are still subject to formal governmental procedures, such as legislation, before they come into effect.
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