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Promotions invalid: Lee

Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) said yesterday that the Taipei County Government has no authority to promote police officers and that promotions announced recently were invalid.

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 (直轄市自治法).

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 (王金平) yesterday.

"Taipei County enjoys the same rights as Taipei and Kao-hsiung cities after amendments to the Local Government Act [地方制度法] were passed in the legislature," Chou said.

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 (郭素春), who was present during the meeting between Chou and Wang, confirmed that Wang had promised to help Chou negotiate the matter with Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄).

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
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