Lawmakers yesterday approved all nine Transitional Justice Promotion Committee members nominated by Premier William Lai (賴清德).
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers tried to boycott a vote by proposing to send the nominations to a round of cross-caucus negotiations, but Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said there is no precedent to hold negotiations over the investiture of government officials.
After a motion by the KMT caucus to hold negotiations was voted down, Su told Legislative Yuan staff members to set up voting booths, which KMT caucus whip Lin Te-fu (林德福) and Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) pushed over.
The KMT caucus unanimously withheld from voting, while the People First Party (PFP) caucus also abstained.
Former Control Yuan member Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) became Transitional Justice Committee chairman after securing 67 votes for and four against his nomination, while Mainland Affairs Office Deputy Minister Chang Tien-chin (張天欽) became deputy chairman after netting 68 “yes” votes.
The four votes against Huang’s appointment were cast by New Power Party legislators Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸), Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) and Freddy Lim (林昶佐), a source said.
Huang Kuo-chang has spoken out against Huang Huang-hsiung’s nomination, because he was a Control Yuan member under former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
The seven other nominees were also approved. They are: Association for Truth and Reconciliation chief executive Yeh Hung-ling (葉虹靈), Judicial Reform Foundation member Greg Yo (尤伯祥), Taiwanese literature academic Yang Tsui (楊翠), Academia Sinica ethnologist Peng Jen-yu (彭仁郁), Academia Sinica Institute of Taiwan History research fellow Hsu Hsueh-chi (許雪姬), Presbyterian Church in Taiwan assistant director-general Pastor Eleng Tjaljimaraw (高天惠) and Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee member Hua Yih-fen (花亦芬).
KMT caucus whip Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said the caucus withdrew from the vote to protest the Council of Grand Justice’s rejection of a KMT-PFP request last year that it issue a constitutional interpretation on Su’s handling of a budget review for the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program.
He also criticized the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例) passed in December last year for failing to include the return of Aborigines’ traditional territories, saying that without it, transitional justice would only devolve into a tool for the Democratic Progressive Party to crucify the KMT.
Meanwhile, Executive Yuan spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) thanked lawmakers for approving the nominations on behalf of the premier.
The Executive Yuan is finalizing paperwork to appoint the members and hopes that the committee could begin operations before the end of this month, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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