Legislators will be subject to punishments ranging from having to apologize to the suspension of their legislative rights for improper conduct if amendments to a law governing lawmakers’ conduct are passed.
The legislature’s Judiciary, Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday approved the preliminary review of legal revisions to the Legislators’ Conduct Act (立法委員行為法), which would more clearly classify the levels of punishment meted out to lawmakers found to have behaved improperly.
The draft would make offending legislators subject to, depending on the severity of the misdemeanor, having to make a public apology, both verbal and written, or a ban on attending the legislature for four to eight sessions.
The draft would require the offender to make the apology at a plenary legislative session.
With the consent of a simple majority of legislators attending a full-house legislative sitting, offenders would be subject to the suspension of their legislative rights for one to three months. Offenders would have their legislative rights suspended for three to six months if two thirds of legislators present agreed on such punishment. It would require the approval of three quarters of the legislators present to suspend legislative rights for six to 12 months.
While the legislature’s Discipline Committee is currrently required to close a case within three months after receiving the complaint, the draft would extend it to six months or the case would automatically become invalid.
The draft proposed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators was 12 months.
The KMT proposal also suggested that legislators with their legislative rights suspended would not receive any pay except for that of their assistants, but committee members decided to keep the current article intact.
In other words, offenders will not receive any salary during the suspension period, but are still entitled to benefits.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠), a committee member, said she did not oppose the draft amendments but they would be questionable if the purpose of the changes was to target the DPP.
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
President William Lai (賴清德) today condemned an alleged attempt by two Chinese to snatch a letter of congratulations handed to Taiwan’s taekwondo team after they won silver at the Summer World University Games in Essen, Germany, yesterday. A Chinese man and woman reportedly tried to snatch a congratulatory letter to athletes Hung Jiun-yi (洪俊義), Jung Jiun-jie (鍾俊傑) and Huang Cho-cheng (黃卓乘) from the Ministry of Education, and then argued with media employees. “Why are you taking our things?” the media employees asked. “Does that say Chinese Taipei?” the two Chinese reportedly said. Following the incident, Sports Administration Director-General Cheng Shih-chung (鄭世忠) wrote on
RSS