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Pan-blues agree to extra session

Pan-blue legislators changed their minds yesterday, accepting the government's proposal to hold an extraordinary legislative session, saying they would put a motion to recall President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) up for review in the session.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) legislative caucuses held a lunch meeting to discuss the matter.

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) also convened a cross-party negotiation session on holding an extra session, a motion proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus after many government bills were blocked in the last session because of a proposed amendment on direct links.

The KMT and PFP caucuses said last week that a special session could be held if pan-green legislators agreed to vote on the direct links amendment, in which the government's authority to grant permission for Taiwanese ships and aircraft to travel directly to China would be removed.

But KMT caucus whip Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) yesterday said the special session should review the recall motion to meet the public's expectations.

Pan said that pan-blue caucuses would come up with a motion to hold an extra session to review a proposal to recall the president, the direct links amendment, a government-sponsored budget bill for flood-prevention and two other pan-blue camp amendments.

The last two include an amendment to the Statute Governing Preferential Treatment for Retired Presidents and Vice Presidents (卸任總統副總統禮遇條例), which state that if any of their relatives are charged and convicted with corruption-related crimes, preferential treatment will be canceled.

Pan-blue legislators proposed the amendment in the wake of the detention of the president's son-in-law, Chao Chien-ming (趙建銘), on suspicion of insider trading.

A pan-blue camp amendment to the Law Governing Legislators' Exercise of Power (立法院職權行使法) would give the legislature investigative powers, enabling it to probe the March 19, 2004 attempt to assassinate the president and vice president, and the construction of Kaohsiung's rapid transit system, among others.

PFP Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) said that only when the legislature was endowed with investigative power could it encourage prosecutors to look into scandals related to the first family without fear.

The agenda suggested by the pan-blue camp was rejected by the DPP legislative caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), who said that the special session should review priority bills of concern to the public, rather than those that might result in political conflict.

Meanwhile, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislators yesterday visited Minister of Foreign Affairs Morgan Hwang (黃營杉), urging the ministry to come up with measures to respond to the possible opening of cross-strait direct links.

"The government has been trying to persuade DPP legislators not to boycott the vote on the direct links amendment in the special session. If this is the case, I am afraid that we won't be able to block the amendment," TSU Legislator Ho Min-hao (何敏豪) said.
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