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Opposition issues new threat over bonuses

Fan Kuang-chun, right, secretary general of the Judicial Yuan, carefully reviews next year's central government budget at a sitting of the legislature yesterday. The pan-blue camp has threatened to cut the budget of the Judicial Yuan, in retaliation for the government's insistence that Grand Justices be paid a ``professional bonus.'' PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

With the Judicial Yuan preparing to pay each grand justice around NT$900,000 (US$26,756) for 10 months' unpaid "professional bonus" -- in defiance of the legislature and armed with a Council of Grand Justices ruling on the matter -- pan-blue-camp legislators responded by saying that they would cut next year's budget for the Judicial Yuan.

"Although the Council of Grand Justices ruled that the legislature's removal of its professional bonus was unconstitutional, the pan-blue parties still think that the grand justices should not receive the professional bonus. So, the oppos-ition parties will challenge the Judicial Yuan's proposed budget for next year," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) said yesterday.

A Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday that the Judicial Yuan was preparing to move reserve funds to pay the grand justices more than NT$900,000 in professional bonuses which have been blocked since January when the legislature removed the money from the budget.

The report was confirmed by the Judicial Yuan yesterday.

The Council of Grand Justices in July ruled that the Legislative Yuan's removal of their professional bonus was unconstitutional, rejecting pan-blue legislators' arguments that the grand justices were not judges, and therefore not entitled to the bonus.

The council's interpretation said grand justices are judges who decide whether a case is constitutional.

The legislature on Jan. 20 decided to remove the bonus from the salaries of the grand justices and the Judicial Yuan president and vice president, equivalent to a NT$89,325 deduction from their monthly paychecks.

The council also denied that there was a conflict of interest in members ruling on their own salaries, because the constitutional interpretation did not in itself increase the grand justices' income.

The ruling also said that Judicial Yuan President Weng Yueh-sheng (翁岳生) and Vice President Cheng Chung-mo (城仲模) are also grand justices, and that the legislature's decision to remove their professional bonus was therefore also unconstitutional.

KMT and People First Party legislators admitted the move to cut the bonuses 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 unconstitutional.

The statute was passed by the legislature to investigate the assassination attempt last year on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on suspicion that Chen had faked the shooting in an effort to influence the outcome of the election.
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