President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday called on both the ruling and opposition parties' caucuses not to politicize the matter when exercising their duty to examine his list of candidates for the Council of Grand Justices.
The Presidential Office on Monday announced the list of 15 candidates who Chen nominated to serve as new members of the Council of Grand Justices.
The list of nominees will be presented to the Legislative Yuan later this month in order to gain the legislators' consent.
Since it will be the first time the Legislature Yuan has had the authority to approve the president's candidates for the Council, Chen expressed his concerns that there could be trouble.
Parties may resort to political squabbling over his choices, so Chen yesterday called on the party caucuses to handle the process responsibly and not oppose his candidates merely for the sake of opposition.
To discourage conflict, Chen, who is also the DPP party chairman, made it clear his belief that even though the candidates were nominated by him, they are not beholden to him nor his party because it is incumbent upon them to devote themselves to the nation, the Constitution and the democracy lain down therein.
The opposition alliance released a statement on Monday saying that it would approve only 10 of the nominees on the list for fear the five remaining individuals would not be able to remain impartial because they are pro-DPP.
Chen said that such comments are not fair since none of the legislators have had a chance to get to know these nominees.
To rebut the alliance's claim, Chen added that of all the 15 nominees, there were five who have ancestors from Chinese provinces, which was a number higher than that of last session.
Chen stressed that none of the 15 nominees were members of the DPP and that neither political considerations nor divvying up of office spoils were involved in the process of screening candidates.
The list of nominees includes three women which the government says shows the value it places on women's rights.
The main mission of the Council of Grand Justices, whose term in office is eight years, is to interpret the Constitution and make the interpretation of laws and ordinances consistent.
The new grand justices are scheduled to take office in October.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching