The legislature yesterday approved two proposals to probe the nationality of all lawmakers and government officials, following recent queries by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Diane Lee's (李慶安) US citizenship status.
The legislature resolved that information on all legislators should be submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) within a week after the next plenary session ends on June 3, while allowing government agencies to submit information on all public officials within three months from June 3.
However, any legislator can also propose a reconsideration of the bill before June 3.
The proposals — one by the DPP to investigate all legislators and the other by the KMT to include all public officials — were passed after a brief closed-door negotiation session between the DPP and the KMT caucuses yesterday morning.
The two initiatives were proposed in March after the Chinese-language Next Magazine accused Lee of having US citizenship, a claim that she denied.
The KMT proposal was put forward to counteract the DPP’s initiative.
Both proposals were put forward for further cross-party negotiation in March, but the DPP caucus successfully added the two initiatives to yesterday’s plenary agenda.
Article 20 of the Nationality Act (國籍法) prohibits anyone with foreign citizenship from holding a government position.
Any lawmaker or government official found to have dual citizenship would be relieved of his or her job and forced to return his or her salary.
Lee has said she obtained permanent residency in the US in 1985 and citizenship in 1991, but gave up her US citizenship after becoming a public official.
She has also cited Section 349(A)(4) of the US Immigration and Nationality Act, saying that she had lost her citizenship when she began to serve as a public official and took an oath of allegiance in relation to the job.
If Lee were found to be a US citizen, she would be required to give back all the salary she received as a Taipei City councilor between 1994 and 1998 and as a legislator since 1998, an amount estimated to be NT$100 million (US$3.29 million).
When approached by reporters yesterday, she declined to comment on the matter further.
KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) said the party believed all government personnel should be investigated.
He did not comment when asked on his way to the KMT caucus meeting if he still believed Lee.
MOFA said yesterday it had not received any official instructions from the Legislative Yuan to undertake responsibility for verifying the nationality of legislators.
However, the ministry hinted that the task would be daunting because “there are close to 200 countries in the world, each with their own set of immigration laws.”
MOFA spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) said that the ministry’s previous experience on seeking assistance from the US, the UK and Japan on verifying whether the presidential and vice presidential candidates possessed dual nationality showed that many nations require the consent of the individual before any investigation could take place regarding their status.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS