The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have worked in cahoots to try and force through legislative reform bills. So far, the contents are questionable — the legislation is not only of exceptionally poor quality, but also ignores basic constitutionality.
The “state of the nation address” motion alone reveals that the proponents have lost all sense of constitutional awareness.
The Legislative Yuan on Tuesday last week completed the second reading of Article 15-1 of the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法). It came to light that the KMT and the TPP had not only revised the original articles, but had also added two new ones, including making the state of the nation address into a “compulsory duty.” These amendments seem to have been “cooked up” and passed in the shadows, a shockingly unconstitutional move.
Article 15-1 of the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power states that the source of its authority derives from the Additional Articles of the Constitution (憲法增修條文) and that it follows the conditions set by these constitutional amendments. Article 4-3 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution stipulates that “when the Legislative Yuan convenes each year, it may hear a report on the state of the nation by the president.”
However, the KMT and the TPP have proposed an amendment that changes this optional provision into a mandatory requirement — “the newly elected president must submit a state of the nation report to the Legislative Yuan within two weeks of their inauguration to office, and has to deliver his speech within a month” — which is a blatant violation of the existing constitutional agreement.
The amendment to the law raises concerns around the sheer number of state of the nation addresses.
The reasoning is straightforward. With the exception of a presidential handover following elections, the only instances in which the president leaves office is as a result of resignation, impeachment, dismissal or death. In such situations, the vice president must assume the presidency or the succession must be handled according to constitutional regulations.
However, consider a scenario in which the president has already presented his speech to the Legislative Yuan, but must subsequently step down. If the KMT and the TPP had their way, the new president would need to deliver another address.
In a second scenario involving a presidential handover, if the outgoing president had delivered a state of the nation address before March 1, the incoming president would still have to give another one according to the second reading of Article 15-1.
In yet another situation involving multiple presidential transitions within one year, each new president would be obliged to deliver a speech. Just how many speeches does the president need to deliver to satisfy the demands of the KMT and the TPP?
The wording of the “state of the nation address” as stipulated in the Additional Articles of the Constitution clearly indicates that it was only intended to be delivered once a year. Any interpretation that calls for multiple speeches within a year would be nothing but a thorn in the side of the president. It is glaringly obvious that should the presidency change, the address should simply defer to the following year.
The intentions behind the bills might be crystal clear, but are certainly not pure — the goal is to ultimately extend the Legislative Yuan’s oversight of the Executive Yuan to the president.
This might explain the decision to replace the term “premier” with “president” in Article 16 of the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power, which originally required the premier to present an administrative report within two weeks of assuming office.
In their smugness, perhaps the KMT and the TPP have forgotten that the Constitution states that “the Executive Yuan is accountable to the Legislative Yuan,” not the president is accountable to the Legislative Yuan.
The Constitution outlines specific roles and responsibilities for the president and the Legislative Yuan in governing the nation, with the Additional Articles of the Constitution already establishing rules regarding the state of the union address. Should the KMT and the TPP wish to expand oversight of the president, they should seek to directly change the Constitution rather than attempt to sneak in shady and unconstitutional legislative amendments.
(Editor’s note: The reform bills passed their third reading on Tuesday.)
Chang Bao-yuan is a former presidential secretary.
Translated by Gabrielle Killick
Taiwanese pragmatism has long been praised when it comes to addressing Chinese attempts to erase Taiwan from the international stage. “Taipei” and the even more inaccurate and degrading “Chinese Taipei,” imposed titles required to participate in international events, are loathed by Taiwanese. That is why there was huge applause in Taiwan when Japanese public broadcaster NHK referred to the Taiwanese Olympic team as “Taiwan,” instead of “Chinese Taipei” during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. What is standard protocol for most nations — calling a national team by the name their country is commonly known by — is impossible for
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
A recent Taipei Times editorial (“A targeted bilingual policy,” March 12, page 8) questioned how the Ministry of Education can justify spending NT$151 million (US$4.74 million) when the spotlighted achievements are English speech competitions and campus tours. It is a fair question, but it focuses on the wrong issue. The problem is not last year’s outcomes failing to meet the bilingual education vision; the issue is that the ministry has abandoned the program that originally justified such a large expenditure. In the early years of Bilingual 2030, the ministry’s K-12 Administration promoted the Bilingual Instruction in Select Domains Program (部分領域課程雙語教學實施計畫).
Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry spoke at the Yushan Forum in Taipei on Monday, saying that while global conflicts were causing economic strife in the world, Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy (NSP) serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region and offers strategic opportunities for small island nations such as Fiji, as well as support in the fields of public health, education, renewable energy and agricultural technology. Taiwan does not have official diplomatic relations with Fiji, but it is one of the small island nations covered by the NSP. Chaudhry said that Fiji, as a sovereign nation, should support
RSS