State of nation tactics
None of the three parties in the new legislature have more than half of the total seats. With the new legislative session about to begin, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of the pan-blue camp and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) of the white camp have been sharpening their knives.
For the KMT, caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) said he would push for the normalization of a presidential state of the nation address to the legislature and seek amendments to compel the president to answer questions from lawmakers.
TPP secretary-general Wu Chun-cheng (吳春城) agreed, saying that it would be “the sooner the better” for a rule change and that the state of the nation address should be a “question and answer” session to prevent the president from evading accountability.
KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) demanded that president-elect William Lai (賴清德) “answer all the questions, and answer them truthfully” after he takes office as president on May 20 following his election victory with the Democratic Progressive Party last month.
The Legislative Yuan — which is the highest organ of public opinion in Taiwan — is responsible for monitoring the government.
This is indeed in line with the operation of a democratic constitutional system.
However, under the “five power” Constitution, the highest organ of the administrative branch is the Executive Yuan, with the Legislative Yuan and Executive Yuan on the same level.
Although the Constitution clearly and definitively states that the premier and his Cabinet members should face questions from the legislature, there is no legal basis for the opposition camp to demand that the president be subjected to such a process as well.
Before an amendment is passed, it should remain a constitutional norm for the legislature to be limited to questioning the premier and Cabinet members.
The opposition camp’s demand for an “impromptu” session of “answering all the questions and answering them truthfully” is at best a disguised threat or an insult to the president.
Moreover, given the uneven quality, knowledge and cultivation of legislators, they would be unable to put aside their resentments —be they personal or because of their party — during a question-and-answer session.
If the lawmakers are unable to ask meaningful questions, how can they expect the president to answer them truthfully?
If the pan-blue and white camps continue to play tricks, it might even trigger public protests.
Tien Fong-wen
Taipei
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