The Executive Yuan yesterday decided to send the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Statute (三一九槍擊事件真相調查特別委員會條例) back to the Legislative Yuan for reconsideration, in effect vetoing the legislation. If the reconsideration request fails, the statute will return to the Executive Yuan, where it must be signed into law by the president.
"We are sending the statute back because it will destroy the principle of separation of powers, and it will usurp the power of the Judicial and Control Yuans," Cabinet Spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said after the ad-hoc meeting at which the decision was reached.
Before the meeting, Premier Yu Shyi-kun also criticized the statute as "unconstitutional."
"Although we are not certain whether we will succeed in invalidating the statute, we still need to return the statute to the Legislative Yuan for reconsideration to protect the Constitution," Yu said.
According to the Constitution, the Executive Yuan -- with the consent of the president -- can return a resolution made by the Legislative Yuan within 10 days.
The Legislative Yuan has to handle the request for reconsideration within 15 days after the request is delivered. If the Executive Yuan delivers such a request during the legislative recess, the legislature needs to convene within 7 days and must make a decision within 15 days after convening.
To reject the Executive Yuan's request for reconsideration and maintain the original resolution, 109 legislators -- a simple majority of the 217 seats in the 225-seat Legislative Yuan that are currently filled -- have to vote in favor of the resolution, or the resolution will be invalidated.
This may pose a problem for the pan-blue alliance, since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) caucuses now only have 112 lawmakers altogether. Two KMT legislators are on the lam as fugitives from justice while a couple of other legislators have cancelled their KMT memberships. Therefore, the pan-blue camp is likely to be forced to rely on the 10 members of the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU) to pass the original resolution.
"The DPP administration is returning the statute for the legislature's reconsideration in a harsh way, ignoring that the legislature passed the statute based on the people's desires. It is just like what happened with the Referendum Law (公投法) last year," KMT caucus whip Legislator Huang Teh-fu (黃德福) said yesterday.
"If the statute really violates the Constitution, the DPP should request a Constitutional interpretation on the statute via the appropriate channels," Huang said.
On the other hand, the DPP caucus said that it and the Executive Yuan would discuss when to deliver the reconsideration request, and work to secure abstentions from opposition lawmakers during the subsequentvote.
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