The Legislative Yuan on Tuesday last week passed a set of controversial bills proposed by opposition lawmakers expanding the legislature’s power of investigation and introducing penalties for “contempt of the legislature.”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have pushed for the passage of the amendments to the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Powers (立法院職權行使法) and the Criminal Code, in the name of “legislative reform” to make the government more transparent and accountable. The bills grant the legislature investigative powers, allowing it to hold hearings and demand that government agencies, the military, judicial officials, organizations and individuals provide information or documents or face fines. They would also criminalize “contempt of the legislature” by civil servants who make false statements during a hearing or questioning in the Legislative Yuan.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said the bills are “unconstitutional” and an abusive overreach of legislative power, which might increase the risk of sensitive information leaks, infringe on the courts’ jurisdiction and harm individuals’ privacy rights.
During the legislative process, the KMT and TPP refused to discuss the DPP’s proposed bills and occupied the legislative speaker’s podium to block the DPP from raising motions or boycotting by a show of hands for the second and third readings.
Tens of thousands of people surrounded the Legislative Yuan in the past two weeks to protest the rushed passing of the bills, which include vague terminology, while the process lacked definition, transparency, cross-party negotiations and measures to protect the rights of those affected.
Many protesters also expressed concern that expanded legislative power would erode the Constitution, and benefit Beijing by hindering the government’s execution of policies and undermining President William Lai’s (賴清德) presidency.
The bills would not immediately become law, as the Executive Yuan can return them to the Legislative Yuan for reassessment, but if more than half of the original lawmakers uphold the original bill, the Cabinet would have to pass it to Lai to be signed. The president does not have veto powers, so he can only ask the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the bills after they have been signed into law.
The KMT called the bills a “great victory,” and KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (?) instantly showed his true colors by making several extravagant claims in the past week, with little regard for — and even showing contempt for — the Constitution, the judicial system, KMT’s party charter and their “ally” the TPP.
Fu and TPP caucus whip Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) pledged that they would “surely abolish the Control Yuan,” but the separation of the five government branches is an integral part of the Constitution.
The preface of the KMT Charter states that the party follows the principles of the separation of the five government branches. KMT leaders have also constantly said that they are determined to protect the Constitution, so Fu’s call to abolish the Control Yuan and the unbalanced expansion of legislative power from the passed bills highlight the discordance in the KMT and its unconstitutional power grab under the pretense of “reform.”
He further pledged to establish an “opposition parties’ special investigation division,” which has been rejected by TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Ko said the TPP advocates for the division of three powers: the Legislative Yuan, Executive Yuan and Judicial Yuan.
The public should continue to keep their eyes on the Legislative Yuan, especially on Fu and the KMT caucus, as their “victory” has seemingly encouraged and intensified their undisguised grab for power and could further harm the nation’s democracy.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they
RSS