A legislative committee ground to a halt yesterday when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) obstructed the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) attempts to force through amendments to a government restructuring law.
The Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee decided to discuss revisions to the Organic Act of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織法), the Organic Standard Act of Central Government Agencies (中央行政機關組織基準法) and a bill on the temporary provision of the adjustments of the Executive Yuan’s functions and structure next Wednesday morning. A public hearing will follow in the afternoon.
KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) said he hoped to see all related bills pass the legislature in this session.
Committee chairwoman KMT Legislator Pan Wei-kang’s (潘維剛) decision to review amendments to the Organic Act of the Executive Yuan article by article irritated DPP Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
Ker pointed out a procedural flaw, arguing that the number of committee members required to proceed with a review is three. There were only two members present when Pan made the order, Ker said.
Describing it as a move to help President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) score political points, Ker urged the legislature to refrain from acting as Ma’s rubber stamp. He requested that the committee hold a public hearing before it moves on to the review.
While Ker was pounding the table in anger, his mobile phone rang, causing laughter that cooled the mood.
Ker called on the KMT not to rush through legal revisions and create a false impression that the administration was serious about government reform. He pledged to adopt a scorched earth policy should the KMT attempt to steamroll the bill through.
Holding banners that read “the more government restructures, the more self-serving it becomes,” other DPP lawmakers joined him and requested that the KMT stop passing laws that serve its own interests. The two parties then engaged in a debate over the bill and legislative procedure.
Pan turned off Ker’s microphone and ordered a recess.
KMT Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said he thought the DPP’s requests sounded reasonable and that it made sense to review other related bills. KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) said the process had to move on and DPP lawmakers could voice their opinions during the article-by-article review.
DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said the Act Governing the Total Number of Civil Servants Employed by Central Government Agencies (中央政府機關總員額法) was the most important bill and that the DPP had to do its best to carefully scrutinize the amendments.
Pan urged DPP lawmakers to refrain from starting a row simply because they “failed” with Sunday’s and Monday’s protests.
The afternoon session turned into a fracas when Pan announced that the meeting would not end until all the articles were reviewed. After another lengthy round of negotiations, an agreement was reached.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS