Amid protests by the Democratic Progressive Party and several civic groups over the legitimacy of a review committee that has been set up to select board members for the Public Television Service (PTS), eight members nominated by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) yesterday obtained approval from the committee to join the current 13-seat board.
The expansion of the board followed the enactment of the amended Public Television Act (公共電視法) by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-dominated legislature. The DPP caucus and activists, however, said the amendment was an attempt by the government to compromise PTS’ independence.
In accordance with the amendment, which President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promulgated on July 8, 13 members on the review committee were appointed by the legislature in September last year. One of the members was recommended by the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union, three by the DPP, and nine by the KMT, in proportion with the seats each party holds in the legislature.
The review committee should be disbanded and reshuffled as a result of the amendment that was passed last month, DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said.
“How can the government choose to apply the law selectively? It applies the newly amended Public Television Act when it wants to have more people on the board, but when it comes to the review committee, it chooses to disregard the law,” Kuan said.
Three members who had been nominated by the DPP boycotted yesterday’s committee meeting.
Former chairman of the state-owned broadcaster Radio Taiwan International Cheng Yu (鄭優), Contemporary Monthly magazine editor-in-chief Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒) and Liu Chin-hsin (劉進興), an engineering professor from the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, did not attend the meeting “because it’s illegitimate,” Chin said.
Liu called on the Control Yuan to launch a probe into the controversy.
The committee meeting carried on despite the trio’s boycott.
After the meeting, Ho Nai-chi (何乃麒), director of the Government Information Office’s Department of Broadcasting Affairs, told reporters that the committee had selected eight candidates, from a shortlist of 16 nominated by Liu, as new members on the PTS board of directors.
The committee approved Hung Chen-ling (洪貞玲), an associate professor of the Graduate Institute of Journalism at National Taiwan University, as new board supervisor.
The eight new members and the new supervisor all won 10 votes in the review, which exceeded the three-quarter majority threshold stipulated in the Act, Ho said.
At a separate setting earlier yesterday, Joanna Feng (馮喬蘭), executive director of the Humanistic Education Foundation and a member of the Alliance to Save PTS, said the committee meeting was unlawful because its composition was in violation of the Public Television Act.
Feng said five of the nine people recommended by the KMT were different from the list it recommended in September last year.
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