The Council of Grand Justices stated yesterday that the Legislative Yuan's removal of their "professional bonus" was unconstitutional, rejecting pan-blue legislators' argument that grand justices were not judges, and therefore were not entitled to the bonus.
"Grand justices are judges who decide whether a case is constitutional, so grand justices act as judges," said Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Fan Kuang-chun (范光群) at a press conference yesterday. The pan-blue dominated legislature decided on Jan. 20 to remove a "professional bonus" from the salaries of grand justices and the Judicial Yuan president and vice-president, which amounted to a NT$89,325 (US$2,796) deduction from their monthly paychecks.
The pay cut was pushed through by legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP), who admitted the move was punishment for the grand justices' ruling that the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Statute (三一九槍擊事件真相調查特別委員會條例) was partially unconstitutional. That statute was pushed through by the pan-blue dominated legislature to investigate the assassination attempt last year on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), in an attempt to prove that Chen had rigged the shooting to win the election.
Fan denied that there was any conflict of interest in the Council of Grand Justices' ruling on its own salary.
"The constitutional interpretation issued today was in response to an application by Democratic Progressive Party legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), not by the grand justices, so the Council of Grand Justices does not have a conflict of interest," Fan said.
"The constitutional interpretation did not increase the grand justices' income, so the issue was clearly not an attempt to fatten our own wallets," he said.
Fan said the president of the Judicial Yuan Weng Yueh-sheng (翁岳生) and Vice President Cheng Chung-mo (城仲模) are also grand justices, so the legislature's decision to remove their professional bonus was also unconstitutional.
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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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching