Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (
Lee made the comments during a question-and-answer session at the legislature's Home and Nations Committee meeting yesterday after Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) on Sunday released an order promoting 140 local police officers.
However, National Police Agency (NPA) officials responded on Monday by calling the promotion order invalid and said that the power to promote police officers lay in the hands of the agency, not the county government.
The central and county governments have been battling each other over the issue for the past few days.
"According to the Statute Governing Police Personnel Affairs [警察人事條例], the Ministry of the Interior has the power to handle personnel matters concerning the police," Lee said when asked by Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator David Huang (黃適卓) to comment on the recent controversy.
"Although the ministry may defer the power to special administrative cities, Taipei County is not a full special municipality, and we have never deferred the power to them," Lee said. "Therefore, Chou's [promotion] order is completely invalid."
Taipei County was upgraded to a quasi-special municipality at the beginning of this month, and thus is entitled to certain rights normallly reserved for special municipalities.
A special municipality is a city under direct Cabinet control with "a population of more than 1.5 million" and has "special needs in political, economic, cultural and urban development" according to the Municipal Self-Governance Act (
Taipei and Kaohsiung cities are the only two special administrative cities.
On the other, hand, Chou insisted that Taipei County enjoyed all of the rights of a full special municipality.
"Does the minister of the interior really understand the law?" Chou said when he visited Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
"Taipei County enjoys the same rights as Taipei and Kao-hsiung cities after amendments to the Local Government Act [
He said that all 140 police officers would be promoted as announced and would receive the corresponding salary increases.
When asked for comment, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Kuo Su-chun (
Kuo said the speaker believed Taipei County's status upgrade would be meaningless if it could not enjoy the full rights of other special municipalities.
In response to Chou's comments, the ministry issued a statement last night and said Chou has misinterpreted the laws.
"A quasi-special municipality is not a special municipality, hence it certainly does not enjoy the same rights as a full special municipality" the statement said.
Lee further elaborated that, according to the Local Government Act, a quasi-special municipality is only entitled to enjoy the same administrative organization and budget.
"The power to handle police personnel matters is certainly not included," Lee said in the statement.
Additional reporting by Flora Wang
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS