The summer lull in partisan feuding over various policies in the legislative chamber ended yesterday when lawmakers started signing up for the new legislative session.
High on the agenda for this session is the ratification of the 15 grand justices nominated by President Chen Shui-bian (
A public hearing on the nomination of the grand justices is slated for Friday, when the new legislative session will kick off in earnest.
The review of the incumbent Judicial Yuan President Weng Yueh-sheng (
The ratification of the nominees for the positions of president and vice president of the Judicial Yuan is slated for the morning of Sept. 16, while that of the 13 nominees for grand justices is scheduled for the afternoon of the same day.
To help expedite matters, the DPP legislative caucus decided yesterday during its first caucus meeting to form a task force to achieve the goal.
They also decided not to reveal their ballots during the voting for the nominees. The party will not oversee the ballots of the DPP lawmakers, nor will the caucus mete out punishment to maverick lawmakers who refuse to toe the party line.
Other decisions made during the one-hour closed-door meeting included making efforts to help push through five "political sunshine bills" marked by the Executive Yuan as priority during the new legislative session.
The five bills are drafts of the Political Party Law, the Lobby Law , the statute regarding political donations, the government information disclosure bill and the statute regarding the disposition of assets improperly obtained by political parties.
The Executive Yuan hopes to pass 109 priority bills during this legislative session.
The DPP legislative caucus also decided during yesterday's meeting to mobilize 30,000 to 40,000 party members to participate in the campaign this Saturday to change the name of the country from the Republic of China to Taiwan. Organizers, led by former president Lee Teng-hui (
To cut down the interpellation time and to lend more time for the review of bills, about 50 DPP lawmakers agreed to relinquish their questioning time.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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