The Control Yuan's decision to impeach Minister of Education Ovid Tzeng (
"Tzeng's academic achievements and his dedication to Taiwan's educational reform leave no room for criticism. Nonetheless, the agreement reached on Monday [to impeach Tzeng] was due to his violation of the Nationality Law over the past eight years. It is simply a legal issue. There is no reason to politicize the entire matter," Lin said.
Lin's statement was made in response to fierce criticism by numerous educational organizations that said that the decision was unjust and politically motivated.
"I wonder why the Control Yuan has suddenly become so efficient as to pass this motion within such a remarkably short period of time? I suspect the decision was a political move," DPP lawmaker Chiu Tai-san (
Chiu, joined by representatives from dozens of educational organizations, held a news conference yesterday to garner support for Tzeng.
The Control Yuan's decision to impeach Tzeng for unlawfully serving in three positions at national universities while holding dual citizenship, has created a stir among the public.
Lin said that Tzeng had been negligent over the issue and that several notices from the Ministry of Education -- his direct supervisory unit when he served as administrator of National Cheng Cheng University (CCU) and National Yang Ming University (YMU) -- were sent to remind him to revoke his US citizenship.
However, Tzeng took no action, Lin said.
What makes him more vulnerable to the impeachement charges is that on June 29 of last year he promised to renounce his US citizenship within a year, when he began his stint as president of YMU, Lin said.
Though he filed the paperwork to renounce his US citizenship at the American Institute in Taiwan on June 5 of this year, the procedure was not completed until July 14, which was too late, Lin said.
Tzeng was accused of breaching Article 10 of the National Law Enforcement Statute when he served as the dean of the College of Social Science at CCU from August 1992 to May 2000. The statute stipulates that employees of state-run education facilities are considered public officials, and as such must revoke citizenship of other countries.
The statute was revised in February of this year, to state that only those who gain approval from their supervisors can hold dual citizenship and serve as president of a national university.
Tzeng, as president of YMU at the time, continued to violate the legal regulations because he never applied for approval from the education ministry.
Lin said the verdict was based on Article 1 of the Civil Servant Services Act (
The related documents are in the hands of the Judicial Yuan's Committee on the Discipline of Public Functionaries. It is up to them to decide how to deal with the case.
According to Article 9 of the Law on Discipline of Public Functionaries (
"Our next move will be directed at the education ministry, because it failed to monitor its subordinate organizations as a supervisory unit for all educational institutions of the country," Lin said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the