The Taiwan Association of University Professors (
The group yesterday also urged the public not to support the 13 lawmakers in the year-end legislative elections.
"They are so notorious for their words and deeds that they should be disqualified as legislators," Shane Lee (
Lee said some legislators were put on the list for their involvement with gangster syndicates and money politics.
Others on the list include former scholars or judges who have nonetheless performed miserably in the legislature, Lee said.
The 13 legislators include the New Party's Elmer Fung (
Fung, who was on top of the list, sarcastically said yesterday that he felt "honored to be criticized by hardline Taiwan Independence activists."
Fung was ranked by the group as the most abominable legislator of the 13.
Professors from the association yesterday said that Fung had inappropriately grilled the president's aide Ma Yong-cheng (馬永成), proposed cutting the presidential office's budget, protested the selling of the Japanese comic book On Taiwan (台灣論) and echoed China's protests by lashing out at former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) plan to visit Japan.
Chen, the legislator from the KMT, counter-attacked the association's move, saying "they should be disqualified as university professors since they have made inexplicable accusations without any reasonable evidence."
Chen, Lee Chia-chin and Hsieh Chang-chieh were singled out yesterday by the association for questioning Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi (
Ting was named because he had initiated the recall vote against the president, while the association said Mu and Wu had insulted Minister of Education Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗), and Liao and Chou had embarrassed the premier.
The association said that it would continue monitoring legislators' performance and would later come up with a list of more names, if necessary.
"If the public can boycott these poorly performing legislators' participation in politics, it may help the functioning of the legislature," said professor of history at National Taiwan University (NTU), Cheng Ching-jen (
But another association member, Li Yung-chih (李永熾), who is also professor of history at NTU, yesterday cautioned the media not to assist these legislators in stirring up legislative infighting.
Li urged the media to refuse to report some news events staged by certain legislators who to try to excuse themselves from wrongdoing.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
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