Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) yesterday said that 12 of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 19 nominees for Examination Yuan are pro-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) individuals, indicating that the nominations were made with political considerations in mind and were done in an unprofessional manner.
She said Examination Yuan vice presidential nominee Wu Chin-lin (伍錦霖), nominees for Examination Yuan members Jan Chung-yuang (詹中原), Huang Fu-yuan (黃富源), Tsai Liang-wen (蔡良文), Wu Tai-cheng (吳泰成) and several others were pro-KMT.
Wong added that KMT Vice Chairman John Kuan (關中), who is the vice convener of the evaluation process of nominees of Examination Yuan members, was actually in charge of the nomination process.
She said that Wu and Tsai were both Kuan’s former subordinates.
Meanwhile, the legislature yesterday convened a temporary program committee and decided to place the Presidential Office’s letter withdrawing the nomination of Chang Chun-yen (張俊彥) as the Examination Yuan presidential nominee on the agenda of today’s legislative session.
Although Chang publicly announced his withdrawal from the nomination review process, the committee yesterday drew up an agenda for public hearings on the nominations of Examination Yuan president, vice president and members, and is scheduled to exercise its power of advise and consent over the nominations on Friday.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said that the temporary program committee was held following consultations between ruling and opposition parties, noting that the nomination process would still proceed as scheduled, except that only the nomination for vice president of the Examination Yuan would be reviewed.
“This is an emergency situation as well as the first Constitutional case, so the DPP legislative caucus can accept this way of handling the matter,” Ker said.
However, during the temporary program committee, DPP legislators Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) and Twu Shiing-jer (�?�) doubted that the convening of the committee was in violation of the justice of procedure.
Tsai said that the committee should have issued three days’ notice of the meeting to committee members, but said he did not receive any.
He added that there was no precedent that the legislature had exercised its power of advise and consent over the nominations, which did not include the presidential nominee.
In response, KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), the chairman of the program committee, said that he had sent out a meeting notice on Sunday and that according to Article 16 of the Rules of Procedure of the Legislative Yuan (立法院議事規則), the meeting notice should be issued two days beforehand at the latest except on special occasions. Chang’s withdrawal of his name from the nomination review was a special case, Lai said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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