Presidential Office Secretary-General Su Tseng-chang (
Su made the remarks in response to a call made by opposition legislators who criticized the 29 Control Yuan nominees selected by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), and insisted the Presidential Office to revoke the list. The opposition also threatened to boycott approval of the nominees if changes were not made. Saying that it is the Legislative Yuan's constitutional responsibility to approve Control Yuan nominees, Su said the legislature can also reject the nominees.
However, if the legislature voted to send back the list without examining it first, it would be is the legislature that would be failing to carry out its duties, Su said.
"The Constitution clearly states that new Control Yuan members are to be sworn in by Feb. 1 next year," Su said.
"If the Control Yuan list fails to be approved, the Legislative Yuan should face the consequences for failing to fully carry out its responsibilities," Su said.
"I don't believe that this is the type of outcome people would like to see," he added.
In response to a question whether the Presidential Office will revoke one particular name from the list -- namely, the Control Yuan presidential nominee Clement Chang (張建邦) -- who had been the primary target of the opposition, Su said "no." He explained that the nomination list was sent to the legislature "as one case, one package," and it is impossible for the Presidential Office to revoke the list in part. Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) is reportedly slated to convene cross-party negotiations tomorrow relating to the Control Yuan nominations.
The pan-blue caucuses have been urging Chen to nominate a new set of Control Yuan candidates, and said that if he does not do so, they would delay review of the candidates until the next legislative session.
"We will not approve a set of candidates not approved by the public, but if the president can manage to offer a new set of candidates, we will think about reviewing and approving them before the current session finishes," People First Party caucus whip Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) said.
"The current legislature expires soon, and even if we cannot manage to review and approve the candidates in time, we can leave the task for the new legislature and perhaps that would be more appropriate," Liu added. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Huang Teh-fu (黃德福) also expressed a similar opinion, saying the KMT caucus would not exclude leaving the task for the next legislature.
"The legislature can decide to review the Control Yuan member nominations or not, and if the lawmakers decide to proceed with review, they can approve all the nominations or strike out some candidates," Huang said. "But the nominations are poor, so we must demand that the president come up with a new set," he added.
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:
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