Recalling the president is an outdated political mechanism that has long been abandoned by most democratic countries, constitutional experts say.
"Most of the democratic countries with presidential or semi-presidential government systems have ditched the right of recall a long time ago," said Chang Wen-chen (
Chang said that when the president and vice president were elected by the now defunct National Assembly, the assembly had no need to give reasons for its appointments. By the same token, the assembly did not need to justify recalling those it had elected.
When the National Assembly was marginalized in April 2000, it transferred most of its powers to the Legislative Yuan. When the assembly was abolished in June last year, the powers transferred to the legislature, including the right of recall and impeachment of the president and vice president, remained in the hands of legislators.
"Recall is a very strange and dangerous tool in a country where the head of state is elected by the people," Chang said.
"The constitutional appendix [providing for right of recall] should have been removed a long time ago," she said.
recall vs impeachment
While the recall mechanism is normally exercised in smaller political units and regional constituencies abroad, Chang said that impeachment is usually exercised at federal and state levels.
"Recall and impeachment of the president and vice president are rarely pursued in a democracy because of the severity of these measures," Chang said. "The reason for this is very simple: National leaders should be left in power to maintain social and political stability. If they govern badly, they will be voted out of office in the next election."
The president and vice president can be kept in check by the threat of impeachment, however, which serves as a safeguard against corruption or other serious misconduct.
Although the Constitution of the Republic of China empowers the legislature to recall the president and the vice president, it fails to specify the grounds on which this should happen.
Article 2 of additional constitutional amendments passed last June stipulates that a recall motion requires approval from two-thirds of the legislature and a majority of the eligible voters in a nationwide referendum.
The Law Governing Legislators' Exercise of Power (
In other words, lawmakers can recall the president and vice president for whatever reasons they deem to be appropriate.
The Constitution does not specify the grounds for impeachment, either. They are instead stipulated in the Law Governing Legislators' Exercise of Power.
Article 42, Chapter 7 of the law states that the legislature can impeach the president and vice president for one of two reasons: treason, or collaborating with the enemy.
Article 2 of last year's additional constitutional amendments stipulates that the legislature needs to obtain the endorsement of a simple majority of all legislative members to pass an impeachment motion and the consent of a two-thirds majority to pass the motion.
review
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 US Constitution, on the other hand, sets down clear-cut grounds for impeachment. It allows for removal and impeachment of the president and all civil officers in cases of conviction for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
"High crimes and misdemeanors" is generally read to mean both indictable offenses and other serious non-criminal misconduct, which includes corruption, dereliction of constitutional duty, and violation of limitations on the power of office.
The US Constitution gives the House of Representatives the power to impeach and the Senate the power to try and determine impeachments.
Chang contends that the public, rather than lawmakers, should have the right to initiate impeachments to prevent the mechanism being used as a political tool.
Lin Teng-yao (林騰鷂), a professor of law at Tunghai University, agreed with Chang that the right of recall is a weak point in the nation's constitutional system, but proposed that the public should be entitled to initiate recall campaigns.
"The two-stage recall process should be reduced to a single stage process, because when the people have the right to directly elect their leaders, it only makes sense that they also have power to get rid of them," he said.
He also proposed expanding the grounds for impeachment to include abuse of power, lying under oath or serious criminal misconduct.
Michelle Wang (
"Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has repeatedly called on the ruling party to respect and abide by the Constitution, but what he is doing right now is exactly the opposite," Wang said.
"To resolve the problem once and for all, the Constitution has to be amended," she said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods