Four nominees for the Council of Grand Justices secured the confirmation of the legislature yesterday, despite criticism from civic groups, who said that the review process was not detailed or lengthy enough.
Out of 112 legislators, 109 cast ballots in the vote on the nominations, including Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, some of whom had threatened to abstain.
The DPP caucus panned the nominations on Tuesday — before the review process began — saying that the choices by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) were his attempt to “seize control of the right to legal interpretation,” which was “a humiliating challenge to the judicial system.”
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
It said that boycotting the review was an option for the caucus to show its disapproval.
However, all four nominees received the required 56 votes each to be approved.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), with 64 seats, has a legislative majority, while the DPP has 40 seats.
National Taiwan University law professor Tsai Ming-cheng (蔡明誠) had 79 votes in favor of his nomination, the highest of the four, with 28 votes against and two invalid votes; lawyer Huang Horng-shya (黃虹霞) garnered 71 votes, with 34 against and four invalid ballots; Deputy Minister of Justice Wu Chen-huan (吳陳鐶) received 65 votes for, with 41 against and three invalid.
Shilin District Court President Lin Jyun-yi (林俊益) was the most controversial nomination of the four, due to his acquittal of then-Taipei mayor Ma in 2007 on corruption charges in connection with the use of a special allowance fund.
Lin received 63 votes, 44 against and two invalid votes.
The Alliance for Public Oversight of Grand Justice Nominations, which is comprised of several civic groups advocating human rights protections and judicial reforms, on Thursday ridiculed the “cost-performance ratio” of the review process, saying that only “285 minutes of legislators’ time was allocated for questioning the four, who were then given eight-year positions as grand justices and salaries of more than NT$30 million [US$960,737] each.”
The groups also accused the candidates of evasiveness and ambivalence toward issues concerning human rights and equality, saying that the four “cite popular opinion when it is convenient, but fail to provide their own arguments on constitutional interpretations.”
Chinese-language media outlets, including Storm Media, reported that the DPP caucus had agreed not to boycott the review process in exchange for an end to KMT support for more Control Yuan member nominations during the remainder of Ma’s term.
If DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is elected in next year’s presidential elections, she would be able to nominate 11 Control Yuan members and 11 grand justices in total during her first term, according to the report.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique