The Control Yuan, which should have 27 members, has only 16 members. A recent report that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is preparing to nominate new members to fill in the vacancies triggered criticism from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The KMT mocked Tsai for flip-flopping, saying that her administration had previously advocated the abolition of the Control Yuan before deciding to keep the system and nominate new members.
Several pan-green camp politicians also disapproved.
While it is not hard to imagine why the KMT is opposed to Tsai nominating new Control Yuan members, whose job is to oversee the performance of public servants, many might wonder why some pan-green politicians are playing along.
The current Control Yuan members are closely linked to former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). As it stands, the pro-Ma members can easily put a strain on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) by abusing their supervisory powers.
To prevent this, Tsai decided to nominate new members, fully expecting the KMT to be opposed.
The DPP has always advocated abolishing the Control Yuan, but has never had the power to do it.
The seventh constitutional amendment in 2005 raised the threshold for amending the Constitution so high that even if the legislature passed an amendment to do so, it would most likely fail, as the next requirement — that at least half of electorate vote for the amendment in a referendum — is nearly impossible.
The Referendum Act (公民投票法) has come to be known as the “birdcage act” because of its extremely high threshold for a referendum to succeed, requiring the participation of at least 50 percent of the electorate and at least 50 percent of voters agreeing to a proposal.
For a typical referendum to pass, at least a quarter of the electorate must vote “yes.” In contrast, a referendum on constitutional amendment requires at least 50 percent of the electorate to vote “yes.”
The Control Yuan can only be abolished through a referendum, yet according to Article 2 of the Referendum Act, the general public can only second or veto an amendment proposal, without the power to propose or draft an amendment, irrespective of whether it concerns changing the Constitution.
As a result, allowing the public to participate in the drafting of the Constitution remains a distant goal.
The last time the DPP was in the Presidential Office, the KMT and the People First Party were able to immobilize the Control Yuan for nearly four years, as the two parties held a legislative majority.
During that time, national qualification exams for specialized technicians and civil servants were still regularly held, even though they contravened the Control Act (監察法), which stipulates that national exams must be invigilated by members of the Control Yuan.
If the Tsai administration plan to immobilize the Control Yuan — ideally when the incumbent members finish their tenure — it must first abolish the national exam invigilators rule.
Control Yuan members were elected representatives, which made it symbolically important for them to serve as invigilators. Such functions are no longer important since the Constitution has been amended to make Control Yuan members political appointees.
The rule that national exams must have Control Yuan members as invigilators is nothing but an unnecessary formality.
Chen Mao-hsiung is a retired National Sun Yat-sen University professor and chairman of the Society for the Promotion of Taiwanese Security.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
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