The Presidential Office yesterday fended off criticism that Presidential Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) nominations of 11 Control Yuan members runs counter to a long-term plan to abolish the watchdog agency, saying that its stance remains unchanged.
The current Control Yuan president, vice president and 16 members were all nominated by former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and approved by the previous legislature, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said.
“However, [Tsai was elected in] last year’s Jan. 16 presidential election with a new mandate; the new nominations made to fill the current vacancies ... will make it more representative of that mandate,” he said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Tsai’s nominees were also picked to ensure that the Control Yuan is able to function properly — supervising government agencies and offering assistance to people whose rights have been infringed on due to miscarriages of justice — before the Constitution is amended to pave the way for the agency’s abolition, Huang said.
All 11 nominees are top-notch professionals in their respective fields, which include the environment, public health, the law and human rights, social welfare and finance, he said.
“We must stress that it has been our consistent stance to abrogate the Control Yuan through constitutional amendment. This stance remains unchanged,” Huang said.
According to Article 7 of the Additional Articles of the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution, the Control Yuan “shall consist of 29 members, including a president and a vice president, all of whom shall serve a term of six years.”
Their nominations require the consent of the legislature.
Huang’s remarks came a few hours after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a news conference in Taipei to label the nominations a slap in the face of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
“The DPP has for years advocated the abolition of the Control Yuan and the Examination Yuan... Yet after the party gained power, it swiftly nominated candidates to fill the vacancies at the Control Yuan,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director Tang Te-ming (唐德明) said.
Given the nominees’ backgrounds, their selection was apparently a “political reward” from the DPP for their service or electoral support, Tang said, citing attorney Yang Fang-wan (楊芳婉), who represented former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) in her corruption trial, and People First Party Deputy Secretary-General Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) as examples.
Other nominees include former Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟); former activist and Taipei City Government employee Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲); Deputy Minister of Overseas Community Affairs Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇); former independent legislator Walis Perin; Lin Sheng-fong (林盛豐), a professor; Chang Wu-shou (張武修), a physician; lawyer Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠); former DPP legislator Jao Yung-ching (趙永清); and judge Tsai Chung-yi (蔡崇義).
Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) introduced the 11 nominees to the public at a news conference at the Presidential Office Building after they met earlier in the day with Tsai.
Saying the nominations were aimed at maintaining the Control Yuan’s role of supervising and safeguarding human rights, Chen Chien-jen said he hoped the nominees’ experience would help them undertake the watchdog’s duties.
As the nominees would only be serving the remaining term of their predecessors, their terms are set to expire on July 31, 2020, he said.
“We have communicated with Legislative Speaker [Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全)] about the confirmation of their nominations. He promised to arrange for a review of their cases in the legislature as soon as possible,” Chen Chien-jen said, adding that he expected the nominations to be approved within one to two months.
RULES IGNORED: CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang said that crew members who break the rules would be required to complete the full 14-day quarantine Three EVA Airways flight attendants were fired last month and this month after they failed to follow the government’s quarantine requirements. This was the first time that flight attendants have lost their jobs for quarantine failures. One flight attendant reportedly breached the quarantine mandate by going to school, visiting relatives and dining with friends, while lying to the company about her activities, EVA Air said. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) have established disease prevention measures for cabin crew members, such as monitoring their health and reporting their temperature daily, the company said. While on flight duty, crew
LOOPHOLES: The people behind biased media content produced by a Chinese network, likely without sending staff to Taiwan, remain anonymous, a source said Beijing’s latest attempt at psychological warfare through heavily biased online media is aimed at sowing discord and polarizing Taiwanese society, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s comment came in response to Chinese network Southeast Television, which late last month began broadcasting an online program featuring commentary by Taiwanese unification supporters that authorities suspect was filmed illegally in Taiwan. To circumvent cross-strait regulations, the broadcaster collaborated with online service provider Baidu to air the series titles Diverse Voices From the Taiwan Strait (台海百家說). Only Taiwanese are shown on camera, without revealing the host, interviewer or production team. In one video, political commentator and
A group of overseas Taiwanese in Norway are taking a case on their national identity to the European Court of Human Rights — with plans to file the case in the first half of next year — after Norway’s Supreme Court rejected their appeal to change their listed nationality from “China” to “Taiwan,” Joseph Liu, a Taiwanese lawyer living in Norway, told reporters on Monday. One of the initiators of the movement, “My Name, My Right,” Liu and his group plan to hire lawyers from the UK and France who know European law and have knowledge of Asia to represent them,
SUPPRESSION: Michael Tsai, a former defense minister, said that Beijing’s list of Taiwan independence advocates contravenes the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights The best way to respond to threats from China against Taiwan independence advocates is for the president to publicly reiterate Taiwan’s sovereignty, former minister of national defense Michael Tsai (蔡明憲) said on Sunday. Chinese media on Nov. 15 said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was compiling “a list of stubborn Taiwanese separatists and will severely punish them in accordance with [China’s] Anti-Secession Law and hold them accountable for their actions for the rest of their lives.” Chinese media subsequently accused Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) of being a “first-rate war criminal,” because of his policy on mask exports. “The vast majority
RSS