Publisher and former national policy adviser Rex How (郝明義) yesterday said Minister of Education Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) was not acting as a government official, but as a mob boss.
How was referring to Yeh’s decision on Wednesday to order a rerun of National Taiwan University’s (NTU) presidential election with the five finalists of the previous election.
Yeh suggested that the vote be held again, with committee member Richard Tsai (蔡明興) — who is also the vice chairman of Taiwan Mobile Co — either abstaining from the vote or being dismissed from the committee, because NTU president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) did not reveal that he was an independent director at Taiwan Mobile during the previous election.
This option would resolve the conflict of interest issue without the need to resort to litigation, which would be time-consuming, Yeh said.
How’s open letter, which he published on Facebook with the stated intent of mailing it to Yeh, was titled “One, Two,” and beseeched Yeh to recall his basic knowledge of the law.
As the minister of education and a law expert — with many years of experience teaching administrative law — Yeh should not postpone presenting the issue to the Executive Yuan’s Petitions and Appeals Committee, nor should he use the presentation as leverage with the NTU election committee, How said.
As a political appointee with a background in law, Yeh’s comments that legal action should not be sought because the procedure would be time-consuming and arduous completely undermine the basis of a government that follows the rule of law, How said.
A number of critics of Kuan have also panned Yeh’s decision, calling for more drastic measures to fix procedural flaws in the election.
Kuan was on Jan. 5 elected NTU president and was supposed to take office on Feb. 1, but the ministry put off approval of his appointment amid allegations of plagiarism and a conflict of interest, as well as a flawed selection process.
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