The nation's Constitution, drawn up in 1946, is outmoded and the country should move toward a presidential system, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said yesterday.
Lee also proposed new regulations in the legislature to curb the often bad behavior of lawmakers.
Under his new monicker of "principal" of the Lee Teng-hui school, the ex-president yesterday delivered his first lecture to students -- the 13 legislators-elect from the Taiwan Solidarity Union and their aides -- at a historic mansion in Peipu, Hsinchu.
Lee said that during the 12 years he was in office, his presidential powers were tremendously constrained and that he rarely expressed his opinions on policy directly.
"I was in pain, because I could not speak directly about my views. There were many things that I would have liked to have done, but could not [because the government followed a semi-presidential system,]" Lee said.
The former head of state said that his only measure of policy-making control was his prerogative to call executive meetings of the National Security Council, where he could act with relative independence.
To fully empower the president, Lee recommended instituting a clear presidential system before the 2004 presidential election.
When the Constitution was outlined in 1946, it was designed for a Cabinet-style system and it was meant to curb the power of late president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
"It was formulated out of a fear of dictatorship," Lee said.
But now with the differences of time and space, Lee noted that the re-emergence of a dictatorial regime is now impossible because the president is constrained by checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches of government.
Providing ideas on how to carry out legislative reform, Lee suggested establishing a better system for legislative operations.
The former president expressed his extreme displeasure over lawmakers who spend as much time on TV programs getting free publicity as they do working for the public good.
Lee proposed new guidelines to discipline lawmakers. He also proposed abolishing the "national affairs forum" in the legislature.
At the sessions, which last for up to an hour every legislative meeting, lawmakers are free to comment on current affairs. The public perception is that the forum is often used for grandstanding and political attack rather than enlightened political debate.
Lee said when the session was first established, it was designed as an opportunity for legislators to elevate their public profiles and to give their constituents an idea of how they had voted on the issues. But given the sad state to which the forum has fallen, Lee said, it should be eliminated, because it is widely abused.
Reminding TSU lawmakers-elect that "people are the real bosses of the state," Lee admonished them to be modest, because the legislature represents the collective power of the people.
Lee dismissed remarks that the fledgling party can easily become extinct because it has won only 13 seats in the legislature.
"The TSU is absolutely not a one-term party. Lee Teng-hui will exist forever and so will Taiwan develop forever," Lee said.
While giving a speech at the opening ceremony of the Lee Teng-hui school, TSU Chairman Huang Chu-wen (黃主文) stressed that society should not underestimate the influence of the four-month-old party. "The legislative strength of the TSU cannot be measured merely by the number of seats [it holds]," Huang said.
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