Legislators across party lines yesterday approved President Chen Shui-bian's (
The 200 legislators present during yesterday's legislative session voted 193 to five in favor of the nomination. Two legislators cast invalid ballots during the confidential vote.
The number of affirmative votes Lin won passed the threshold of more than half of the total of 216 legislative seats.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
After the vote, Lin visited each party caucus to express his gratitude and promised to carry out his duties in an "impartial, independent and objective" manner.
In related developments, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
The legislature will review the nominations from Tuesday through Thursday and put them to a vote on Friday, Wang said.
However, inter-party negotiations are still needed to decide the form of the vote on the eight grand justice nominees, he said.
"The point of debate is that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) insists that the legislature should vote on each of the eight grand justice nominees separately, but the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is in favor of voting on the eight nominees as a package," Wang told reporters.
"Both methods would suffice, because the legislature has the authority to approve the nomination. Both ways are legitimate," he said.
KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said voting on each of the nominees conformed to the spirit of the Constitution, adding that "there may be someone [on the list] that the public considers inadequate."
Wang also confirmed that he and Chen had agreed that the president would send a new list of Control Yuan nominees to the legislature by Wednesday.
The president submitted his initial list in late 2004.
However, the list of nominees has so far not been discussed by the legislature because the KMT-controlled Procedure Committee refused to put it on the legislative agenda.
After the DPP's caucus meeting yesterday morning, caucus whip Wang Tuoh (
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