NCC members say they'll stay in posts

"Should we stay or should we go?"

That was the question facing the remaining nine members of the National Communications Commission (NCC) last weekend, after the Council of Grand Justices ruled that the law establishing the commission was unconstitutional.

Yesterday, the nine members came to a unanimous decision that they would stay, on one condition: That the Organic Law of the National Communications Commission (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) be amended by January 2008, when the terms of the legislators who approved their appointments are due to end. The commissioners said that they will step down at that time.

"All nine of us will step down along with the legislators who approved the appointment of the NCC members regardless of whether the administration has finished amending the law by then," said NCC Chairman Su Yeong-ching (蘇永欽).

When asked about his rationale, Su said that the commission felt the need to pressure legislators. The commission, he said, will refuse to play along if the administration and the legislature cannot change the law by that deadline.

The grand justices' ruling had provided a longer grace period for the amendment of the law, allowing the commission to function until the end of 2008 under the current law.

The commission was responding to the council's interpretation last Friday, which Su said was based on faulty reasoning. Su had announced then that commission members would decide by yesterday whether they would continue to serve after the ruling.

Su said that the focus of the members' considerations over the weekend was not about their own personal careers. Rather, he said, they were concerned about whether the interpretation, which has major flaws, should still allow an independent organization such as the NCC to exist and function.

Su emphasized that what dis-heartened commission members the most was the council's argument that if members were recommended by political parties, they would not be able to operate independently, and thereby would not be able to win the people's trust. That argument, he said, wasn't backed up by any evidence.

"The way for an organization to win the people's trust is to follow a strict code of self-discipline," Su said.

The interpretation has completely negated the commission's efforts over the past five months, he added.

In a written statement, the commission attempted to define its authority based on the interpretation.

The commission, the statement said, is a constitutional and independent organization. The government agencies that are now placed under the commission's administration will not be returned back to their original organizations. Moreover, other organizations have no legal authority to take over the commission's operations.

The verdicts handed down by the commission members, who can still legally exercise their authority through 2008, will continue to be legally binding both before and after the interpretation.

Su said the commission was nevertheless "devastated" by the interpretation, which he said had given commission members a sense of the "unbearable heaviness of being." Su said that the nation had come to a critical moment, when it must face the global trends of digital convergence and the withdrawal of political influence from the media and the corporations.

The commission, he said, was willing to endure the humiliation of the grand justices' interpretation, and continue to take up its challenging tasks. Otherwise, the entire society would face a "dark age" in the telecommunications industry.