Shilin District Court Chief Judge Hung Ying-hua (洪英花) yesterday questioned President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) nomination of former grand justice Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) as Judicial Yuan president, saying a re-assumption of the position would contravene the Constitution.
At a news conference “to warn against nepotism in the nation’s judiciary,” Hung said that while Hsu upholds that the Constitution only stipulates that candidates cannot hold the position for two consecutive terms and does not explicitly prohibit re-assumption, “according to official documents regarding the Constitution-amending process [in 1997], what the Constitution means by ‘no consecutive terms’ is precisely ‘once in a lifetime.’”
The draft amendment used the examples of Germany and Italy to support the change that called for the injunction against consecutive terms, “and both German and Italian grand justices, with terms of 12 years and nine years respectively, are not allowed to be appointed for consecutive terms, which means no reappointments,” she said.
Hung also cited then-National Assembly member Thomas Peng (彭錦鵬) as saying during the amendment process that the reasoning behind the ban of serving consecutive terms was to “rule out the possibility of grand justices harboring the desire of reappointment, which would adversely affects their work of Constitution interpretation.”
Hung also quoted then-National Assembly member Yang Min-hua (楊敏華) as saying that the impossibility of consecutive terms would “prevent [grand justices] from hoping that they could enjoy a lifetime of prestige and prosperity, so that they would interpret the Constitution according to their true consciences.”
Keelung District Court Judge Chen Chih-hsiang (陳志祥) seconded Hung’s argument, saying that the 1997 constitutional amendments clearly state that: “Each grand justice of the Judicial Yuan shall serve a term of eight years, independent of the order of appointment to office, and shall not serve consecutive terms.”
Chen said the fact that “independent of the order of appointment” means that there should be no reappointment whatsoever regardless of whether there terms are consecutive or not.
Even if re-assumption of the office is practicable, “shouldn’t the interval be at least eight years instead of Hsu’s five years?” Chen asked, adding: “If five years is okay, how about five days?”
The third issue raised by Chen was that insofar as Hsu also acknowledged that there are concerns involving constitutionality over his reappointment, “the doubt of how [Hsu] could guide judicial reforms [pledged by the president] in the capacity of Judicial Yuan president therefore arises.”
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires