The National Assembly will enter the history books today when the 300 assembly members complete their task of ratifying the constitutional amendments passed by the Legislative Yuan last August.
The assembly became a non-standing body in 2000 after most of its functions were transferred to the Legislative Yuan. Its role has become limited to voting on constitutional amendments, presidential impeachment and changes of national boundaries passed by the legislature.
Former powers
In the past, its responsibilities included listening to the president's state of the nation address, approving the president's nominations of the grand justices and heads of the Examination and Control Yuans.
The Constitution of the ROC, implemented on Dec. 25, 1947, has undergone six rounds of amendments since 1991, all under the direction of the KMT.
The DPP administration has been pushing for a seventh round of constitutional amendments since it came to power in 2000.
The package
Last August, lawmakers passed constitutional amendments that would halve the number of legislative seats from the current 225 down to 113 and adopt a "single-member district, two-vote system" for legislative elections, starting in 2008. At that time, lawmakers' terms are also to be lengthened from three to four years.
The amendments also stipulate that when the legislature wants to pass a resolution to impeach the president or vice president, the resolution needs to be proposed by a simple majority of the Legislative Yuan. The consent of two-thirds of the legislature is required.
After the resolution is passed, the legislature can ask the Council of Grand Justices to review it in the Constitutional Court, and if the court agrees with the resolution, the official to be impeached will be immediately relieved of his or her post.
The current constitutional amendments would also abolish the National Assembly, the very body now poised to vote on the changes. After the assembly is eliminated, bills regarding amendments and territory changes will need to be ratified by the public via referendum after being passed by the legislature.
Under existing rules, a National Assembly must be elected no more than six months after the legislature has passed constitutional amendments in order to ratify them.
Although in future the public will have the final say on constitutional amendments passed by the legislature, a referendum cannot be used to initiate them.
DPP lawmaker Lee Wen-chung (
Taking the reduced number of legislative seats as an example, he said that he thought 113 seats were too few.
"If you ask me whether I'm for halving the legislative seats, I can tell you that I am but I don't think reducing the number of legislative seats is the key," he said.
"The crux of the problem does not lie in the size of the legislature but in the legislative system," he said.
Efficiency the key
In a bid to make the lawmaking body more efficient, Lee said a lawmaker should commit himself or herself to one or two legislative committees and refrain from meddling in other committees.
KMT assembly caucus whip Chuang Lung-chang (
"The spirit of the 1997 constitutional amendments is that the president could nominate members of the majority party in the parliament as government officials when the president and the majority party do not come from the same party," he said.
Chuang attended the 1996 national development meeting in which 22-point consensus was reached by ruling and opposition parties and later became the foundation of the 1997 constitutional amendments.
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