Soong warns of constitutional crisis

PFP Chairman James Soong walks past a bank of television cameras in this photo from 1999. TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO

PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) yesterday said that the nation would face a constitutional crisis if the Presidential Office insists the Legislature Yuan should call an additional session to confirm President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) choice of Council of Grand Justice nominees.

The pan-blue camp chalked up a victory in the Legislature Yuan last Friday, successful delaying the confirmation of the Presidential Office's choice of grand justice nominees until the next legislative session on the condition that the review process must be finished before Sept. 16.

Since then, the DPP has fingered Soong as the one engineering the pan-blue camp's decision to delay the review of the nominees, which the DPP said would end up inflicting serious damage on the nation's constitutional order.

In his defense, Soong, in an interview with a local TV station yesterday afternoon, said that the decision to delay the confirmation was not merely a consensus of the PFP legislative caucus but also that of the KMT and independent legislators.

When asked whether he has any plan to visit China in the near future as KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) has said he would if he is elected president next March, Soong, posing as Lien's running mate, said that, as of now, he has no plans to make the trip.

Soong also said that the DPP administration has not tried hard enough nor was it well-prepared beforehand in its push for Taiwan's bid to join the World Health Organization (WHO)

Taiwan's bid to gain observer status at the World Health Assembly (WHA) -- the highest decision-making body of the WHO -- was rejected for a seventh time last month.

Saying that all what Chen did was write a letter last month to the Washington Post stressing the international community should not exclude Taiwan from the WHO, Soong added that if the KMT-PFP alliance wins the presidential election in March, Lien and himself would infuse the WHO bid with more enthusiasm.

Soong, in another TV interview last Friday, pledged to bring Taiwan into the WHO within two years if the KMT-PFP alliance wins the election.

Soong said he is confident that an administration under the leadership of Lien and himself can gain Taiwan access to the WHO under the principle of "one China" provided for in the Constitution.

Responding to Soong's comments, TSU legislative caucus convener Chien Lin Whei-jun (錢林慧君) said that "Soong is crazy."

"I don't understand the logic behinds statements made by Soong," Chien Lin said.

Noting that she had seen the government agencies as well as legislators across parties lines making visits to the US, Europe and Japan lobbying for their support for Taiwan's WHO bid, Chien Lien said that the Chen administration had worked very hard in pushing for Taiwan's bid for the WHO this year.

"The problem to Taiwan's failing bid to the WHO lies not on insufficient effort of the government but the incessant obstruction of China," she said.