As a drafter of the controversial "Constitution of the Republic of Taiwan," Chang Cheng-shuh (張正修) breathed a sigh of relief when his brainchild eventually saw the light of day after 13 years of painstaking labor.
When Chang, a member of the Examination Yuan and also of the Taiwan Professors Association (TPA) that unveiled the draft on Sunday, first proposed the draft in 1991 -- then called the "Taiwan Constitution" -- and later a revised version in 1994, he said that it was aimed at echoing the "first wave" of constitutional amendment movements.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
"I was one of the few who jumped at the hard-to-come-by opportunity to draw up the blueprint," he said.
The "first wave" of constitutional amendment movements started in 1991 when additional articles were added to the Constitution to legalize direct elections for the National Assembly and Legislative Yuan.
It escalated in 1994 when more constitutional clauses were added to allow the election of the president and vice-president by popular vote. The Legislative Yuan was also vested with the power to recall the president and vice-president, while the National Assembly was stripped of this power.
Pigeonholed
The two drafts were pigeonholed owing to the political situation at the time. The authoritarian Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration was still in power and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) then occupied only 15 seats in the 161-seat legislature.
President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) call this year for a new constitution ushered in the "fourth wave" of constitutional amendment movements and motivated Chang and his association to make public the latest version of the draft, or the "Constitution of the Republic of Taiwan."
Specializing in constitutional studies and regional governance at school, the University of Tokyo-educated holder of a doctoral degree in law included a controversial clause in the draft to give the legislature the power to deprive a local government of its autonomy if its actions conflict with decisions made by the central government.
The outspoken Chang frankly admitted that the clause, dubbed the "[Taipei City Mayor] Ma Ying-jeou clause" (馬英九條款), was targeted at Ma, who he called "defiant" because he constantly challenges the central government's policies.
"Take the Romanization system, for example. Taipei City insists on adopting the Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音) system, while the central government embraces the Tong-yong (通用) system," he said.
"His [Ma's] incompetence in dealing with the pan-blue camp's illegal protests in front of the Presidential Office and the president's official residence after the March 20 presidential election also seriously jeopardized social order in the capital," he said.
In addition to the draft constitution, Chang was also involved in the drafting of the Referendum Law (
Deadlock
When the Examination Yuan was deadlocked over whether to continue the nation's history and geography tests in January's entry-level national civil-service examinations, Chang, an Examination Yuan member nominated by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), proposed renaming the test from "national history and geography" to "Taiwan's history and geography" to avoid confusion.
Displeased with the way his proposal and three others were handled at the Examination Yuan meeting, Chang later issued a press statement to vent his discontent and criticize the final decision as being "uncivilized."
"I welcome any rational and constructive debates about the subject, but those who hold different opinions don't seem to have the guts to discuss the issue face to face," he said.
"What upsets me most is that they rushed to a decision without thoroughly and separately discussing the four proposals," he said.
His pro-independence leanings almost got him into trouble last year when he, as the head of the local civil-servant examination committee, approved another Examination Yuan member Lin Yu-tee (林玉体), who was the convener of the exam's history and geography test sub-committee, to test examinees on only Taiwan history and geography.
"My thinking is very simple: It doesn't violate any law or regulation to test examinees on Taiwan's history and geography," he said.
"The history and geography textbooks used now are about our enemy and some of them are clearly twisted and insulting to Taiwan, while praising China," he said.
Uproar
His decision, however, caused an uproar among pro-unification supporters and prompted the Control Yuan to launch an investigation into the matter, along with another controversy over the use of Hoklo-language questions in Chinese literature tests in another civil-service examination.
Seeking to settle the year-long controversy, the Examination Yuan later spelled out a "four noes" principle for future national examinations.
The "four noes" are that questions in national examinations for civil servants will not reflect examiners' political ideologies, nor will they be based on Hoklo, Hakka or Aboriginal languages, nor will questions be discriminatory on racial or sexual grounds, or test knowledge of obscure pieces of classical Chinese composition or literature.
The Control Yuan concluded its investigative report in June this year and requested that the Examination Yuan review and correct such practices.
Virgin
A devout Buddhist, Chang became a vegetarian in 1981 when he was pursuing his doctoral degree in Japan.
Buddhists practice moral teachings to reach Nirvana and treat all creatures with mercy. Chang said that he practices Buddhism to free himself from samsara, the process of coming into existence as a differentiated mortal creature.
"Carnal desire is the source of karma. To escape from the cycle, I practice celibacy," the 50-year-old virgin said.
Although Chang said that he is heterosexual, he does not harbor any fantasies of getting married or even having a girlfriend.
"I'm a very unromantic person," he said. "I like women but I love freedom more."
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