Following the controversial passage of amendments to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法), the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) and the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party legislators, it has been said that President William Lai (賴清德) could apply Article 37 of the Constitution and simply not promulgate the amendments, while the premier could refuse to countersign them into law.
Unfortunately, presidential promulgation and the premier’s countersignature are legal duties, which neither has the power to refuse. Such a refusal would only add to the chaos, break with constitutional procedure and bring the nation closer to a constitutional crisis. This stuff is constitutional law and governance 101.
However, there are three safeguards available to address the problematic new laws.
First, according to Article 3, Section 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution, if the Executive Yuan deems a bill passed by the Legislative Yuan difficult to execute, it has the option, with the approval of the president and within 10 days of the bill’s submission to the Executive Yuan, to request the Legislative Yuan to reconsider the bill. However, if the legislature upholds it, the premier must immediately accept the bill.
Second, according to Articles 42 and 43 of the Constitutional Court Procedure Act, the Constitutional Court has the power to render a preliminary injunction on the problematic law, and can give interested persons the opportunity to state opinions or conduct the necessary investigations on their own.
Third, according to Articles 47 and 49 of the same law, should the president, any of the five branches of government or more than a quarter of legislators believe that a law is in contravention of the Constitution, they can lodge a petition with the Constitutional Court for a judgement declaring the impugned law unconstitutional.
Even though the new amendment to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act stipulates that the number of justices should not be less than 10, once this provision has been suspended and has yet to come into effect, the decision would still be based on the existing majority — the current total of eight justices — not the amended statutory number of 15.
The court therefore still needs to rule on whether the new amendment is constitutional. Legislators often make amendments to the law that are subsequently deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court and declared void. It is only a matter of time until such legislators would come up against a recall motion.
Chuang Sheng-rong is a lawyer.
Translated by Paul Cooper
Taiwan has lost Trump. Or so a former State Department official and lobbyist would have us believe. Writing for online outlet Domino Theory in an article titled “How Taiwan lost Trump,” Christian Whiton provides a litany of reasons that the William Lai (賴清德) and Donald Trump administrations have supposedly fallen out — and it’s all Lai’s fault. Although many of Whiton’s claims are misleading or ill-informed, the article is helpfully, if unintentionally, revealing of a key aspect of the MAGA worldview. Whiton complains of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s “inability to understand and relate to the New Right in America.” Many
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month raised its travel alert for China’s Guangdong Province to Level 2 “Alert,” advising travelers to take enhanced precautions amid a chikungunya outbreak in the region. More than 8,000 cases have been reported in the province since June. Chikungunya is caused by the chikungunya virus and transmitted to humans through bites from infected mosquitoes, most commonly Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. These species thrive in warm, humid climates and are also major vectors for dengue, Zika and yellow fever. The disease is characterized by high fever and severe, often incapacitating joint pain.
In nature, there is a group of insects known as parasitoid wasps. Their reproductive process differs entirely from that of ordinary wasps — the female lays her eggs inside or on the bodies of other insects, and, once hatched, the larvae feed on the host’s body. The larvae do not kill the host insect immediately; instead, they carefully avoid vital organs, allowing the host to stay alive until the larvae are fully mature. That living reservoir strategy ensures a stable and fresh source of nutrients for the larvae as they grow. However, the host’s death becomes only a matter of time. The resemblance
Most countries are commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with condemnations of militarism and imperialism, and commemoration of the global catastrophe wrought by the war. On the other hand, China is to hold a military parade. According to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency, Beijing is conducting the military parade in Tiananmen Square on Sept. 3 to “mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.” However, during World War II, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had not yet been established. It
RSS