A KMT lawmaker yesterday branded the party's mobilization policy "improper" after he disobeyed a caucus order at Friday's legislative assembly.
"The party caucus should not impose political ideology upon lawmakers for issues that should be above politics, such as the confirmation date for grand-justice nominees," Chen Hung-chang (
On Friday, Chen refused to vote with his party for a postponement on the confirmation date for nominees. He sided with pan-green legislators by voting for the Legislative Yuan to finish the confirmation by extended session.
"I had made my position clear against the order to caucus whip Liu Cheng-hung (
"The KMT is not a party in which one person alone has the say. The mobilization politicized the legislative jurisdiction," he said.
Despite the vote orders issued by the KMT and PFP, four pan-blue lawmakers -- one from the PFP and three from the KMT -- were absent from the legislative showdown.
Chen, meanwhile, ignored his caucus' instructions when the legislative assembly dealt with the resolution requiring state-owned companies to withdraw their investment from the Taiwan High Speed Railway. He voted no to the resolution.
"The high speed railway project was started in the previous KMT government. I regret the oppositions' stance, which will plunge the construction project into financial difficulty if approved," Chen said. Chen's opinion was met with hostility by the KMT caucus. Party whip Liu said that all mobilization violators will face a disciplinary review after the vote.
The other two KMT absentees were Lee Sen-zong (李顯榮) and Tseng Tsai Mei-tso (曾蔡美佐) who both said they were unable to make the vote.
As for Legislator Yang Fumei (
Chung blasted Chen's decision to vote against his party.
"The lawmaker should carry out his legislative power in accordance with the fact that he is a member of the KMT and he must follow the caucus' decision since the caucus represents the majority opinion," the PFP whip said.
Chung disagreed with Chen's view that the justice review was above the party's political ideology.
"The political chaos within the country demonstrates that no disputes can be resolved without ideological rivalry," he said.
Another controversy relating to the mobilization order took place on Wednesday when members of the Home and Nations Committee engaged in a review of the controversial referendum draft bill.
The review ended with a surprise first reading declared by the convener Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘), a TSU lawmaker whose party is devoted to promoting the referendum legislation.
Chen said he announced the approval in accordance with the legislative procedure law, stipulating that the committee may announce the wrap up of the first examination and pass unfinished draft articles to the second round review at the legislative assembly when members of the committee requested to adjourn the meeting ahead of time.
"I carried out a convener's duty and coped with the request from seven opposition lawmakers to dissolve the meeting by a vote. The opposition have no need to question about the vote credibility since it was the legislative staff, not me, who counted the votes," Chen said.
The opposition alliance, with a majority of 11 seats on the committee, unexpectedly submitted to the vote.
Chen said the absence of five opposition lawmakers' from the review gave the pan-greens an advantage.
The forming of a pan-blue alliance for next year's presidential election has given the opposition a numerical edge of 112 seats at the legislature. The pan-greens have a total of 101 seats.
Chen said there was pressure within his party as well as in the pan-green parties concerning mobilization orders.
"The numerical confrontation has worsened the legislative efficiency in this session after the pan-blue alliance applied the tactic to the Procedure Committee and successfully boycotted a number of bills presented by the DPP and TSU," he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods