The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus on Monday led a preliminary review of draft amendments to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), blocking Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers from entering the meeting room. In just three minutes, the review was completed and the meeting concluded, illustrating severe procedural flaws.
In Taiwan’s constitutional system, the Legislative Yuan has the crucial function of gathering and integrating public opinion. Legislators represent the people in exercising their legislative authority — a process that must involve fair and open procedures, allowing for opinions to be expressed fully through debate. Then, through voting, the majority determines the final collective will and enacts it into law.
To prevent a tyranny of the majority, it is essential that minority opinions are respected, their voices heard and the opportunity for debate and open criticism provided — this allows the public to compare the pros and cons of each.
Although the result of a majority vote binds the minority, such decisions cannot be made through deception and trickery. Contraventions of legislative rules and procedures stemming from deception and malicious motives are more than mere technical fouls — their resulting resolutions would be deemed invalid. In particular, depriving the minority of its opportunity for equal political participation inevitably undermines the foundational principles of democracy and equality. Therefore, the result of the vote loses legitimacy and becomes ineffective.
Taiwan possesses unique national conditions — it is marked by a legacy of authoritarianism, party opposition, social division, varying national identities and significant political divides.
Although the KMT gained a legislative plurality in the last election, its total vote count was slightly lower than that of the DPP. While it has dominated the legislative process, it refuses to take on the important task of integrating the public will. Instead, it relies solely on the tyranny of the majority to implement its own will, undermining the constitutional order and disrupting governance.
Just days ago, we witnessed the majority openly infringe upon proper legislative procedures to pass a law. In order to protect the free, democratic constitutional order, President William Lai (賴清德) should refrain from promulgating the law. After accepting the case, court justices should not hesitate to conduct a constitutional review, thereby upholding judicial restraint.
Additionally, voters should recall these corrupt legislators.
All of the above actions are consistent with constitutional democratic principles, including the separation of powers.
Jiang Zung-shiang is a lawyer and a member of the Judicial Reform Foundation’s executive committee.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
A report by the US-based Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday last week warned that China is operating illegal oil drilling inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island (Dongsha, 東沙群島), marking a sharp escalation in Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. The report said that, starting in July, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp installed 12 permanent or semi-permanent oil rig structures and dozens of associated ships deep inside Taiwan’s EEZ about 48km from the restricted waters of Pratas Island in the northeast of the South China Sea, islands that are home to a Taiwanese garrison. The rigs not only typify
RSS