On Nov. 5, all of the accused in a case of alleged corruption related to the second wave of financial reform that was carried out under the administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) were found not guilty in the Taipei District Court, including Chen himself.
This verdict has been greeted by a torrent of criticism. Behind this reaction lies a mistaken notion and confusion, be it intentional or otherwise, between the president’s legally defined powers and his political influence, and between the associated concepts of legal responsibility and political responsibility.
Taiwan’s government is a dual-executive system, also called a semi-presidential system. The main feature of this system is the division of executive power. The president is head of state, and also holds some executive powers, which are defined in the Constitution on an article-by--article and clause-by-clause basis.
In the reasoning section of Constitutional Interpretation No. 627 concerning presidential state secret privileges, the Council of Grand Justices lists the presidential powers granted by the Constitution and by various constitutional amendments.
These include powers related to national defense, foreign and cross-strait relations, emergency state powers and so forth.
The president’s executive powers arise directly from the Constitution rather than being bestowed upon him through laws passed by the legislature, so efforts to determine whether a president has broken the law by exceeding his legally defined powers must involve constitutional questions, rather than being limited to questions of ordinary statutory law.
Executive powers that are beyond the legally defined powers of the president are generally assigned by the Constitution to the Cabinet or the Executive Yuan. Although there have been various constitutional amendments, the article stating that “the Executive Yuan shall be the highest administrative organ of the state” has never been altered.
The system of political accountability whereby the Cabinet informs the legislature of its policy directions, makes policy reports to the legislature and accepts lawmakers’ questions remains in place. An amendment was made to the Constitution to the effect that the premier — the president of the Executive Yuan — is appointed by the president, with no requirement that the appointment be approved by the legislature.
In practice this gives the president an actual influence over many policy decisions of the executive branch, but that influence arises from the political system, and depends on the president’s personal charisma and prestige.
It has not systematically altered the distribution of powers between the president and the executive branch.
For example, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) made known his standpoint on the issue of a High Administrative Court ruling halting construction of the third and fourth stages of the Central Taiwan Science Park. He also expressed his views on the Suhua Highway improvement project. These are cases of the head of state expressing his position on major policy issues. They are political acts, but these issues do not fall within the legally defined powers of the president.
The Constitution provides two different systems — recall and impeachment — for monitoring the president and holding him to account. These control mechanisms have been present in the Constitution ever since it was written and their purpose is to subject the president to checks and balances.
In other words, those who drafted the Constitution and those who later amended it have clearly distinguished between the president’s political and legal responsibilities. Recall of a president is designed to hold the president to account for his or her political responsibilities. It depends on the public’s political approval or disapproval of the president.
It is not necessary for the president to have committed a crime — the public can still make the president step down by voting in favor of a recall proposal in accordance with the legally defined process.
The purpose of impeachment, on the other hand, is to hold a president to account for his or her legal responsibilities, so if the legislature proposes a motion of impeachment against a president it will be adjudicated by the Council of Grand Justices.
When a court adjudicates on the question of whether a president has abused his powers to obtain unlawful benefits for himself or for others in a particular case, it must go back to examining the president’s legally defined powers.
Only by so doing does the court comply with the basic principle of a country under the rule of law, namely that of trial according to the law. Otherwise we would descend into mass trials like those that took place during China’s Cultural Revolution and Taiwan would be mired in unending political struggle.
Chen Yaw-shyang is an assistant professor of public administration and policy at National Taipei University.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has long been a cornerstone of US foreign policy, advancing not only humanitarian aid but also the US’ strategic interests worldwide. The abrupt dismantling of USAID under US President Donald Trump ‘s administration represents a profound miscalculation with dire consequences for global influence, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. By withdrawing USAID’s presence, Washington is creating a vacuum that China is eager to fill, a shift that will directly weaken Taiwan’s international position while emboldening Beijing’s efforts to isolate Taipei. USAID has been a crucial player in countering China’s global expansion, particularly in regions where
With the manipulations of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), it is no surprise that this year’s budget plan would make government operations difficult. The KMT and the TPP passing malicious legislation in the past year has caused public ire to accumulate, with the pressure about to erupt like a volcano. Civic groups have successively backed recall petition drives and public consensus has reached a fever-pitch, with no let up during the long Lunar New Year holiday. The ire has even breached the mindsets of former staunch KMT and TPP supporters. Most Taiwanese have vowed to use
Despite the steady modernization of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the international community is skeptical of its warfare capabilities. Late last month, US think tank RAND Corp published two reports revealing the PLA’s two greatest hurdles: personnel challenges and structural difficulties. The first RAND report, by Jennie W. Wenger, titled Factors Shaping the Future of China’s Military, analyzes the PLA’s obstacles with recruitment, stating that China has long been committed to attracting young talent from top universities to augment the PLA’s modernization needs. However, the plan has two major constraints: demographic changes and the adaptability of the PLA’s military culture.
About 6.1 million couples tied the knot last year, down from 7.28 million in 2023 — a drop of more than 20 percent, data from the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs showed. That is more serious than the precipitous drop of 12.2 percent in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the saying goes, a single leaf reveals an entire autumn. The decline in marriages reveals problems in China’s economic development, painting a dismal picture of the nation’s future. A giant question mark hangs over economic data that Beijing releases due to a lack of clarity, freedom of the press