The self-destructive protest vote in January that put the pro-People’s Republic of China (PRC) side in control of the legislature continues to be a gift that just keeps on giving to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Last week legislation was introduced by KMT Legislator Weng Hsiao-lin (翁曉玲) that would amend Article 9-3 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) to permit retired and serving (!) military personnel to participate in “united front” (統戰) activities. Since the purpose of those activities is to promote annexation of Taiwan to the PRC, legislators from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) naturally attacked the proposed legislation as “treasonous.”
It will come as no surprise that after the victory of Taiwan’s badminton duo at the Paris Olympics in August Weng praised the team as “the pride of Chinese people.” Nor should it be surprising that back in March, when questioning Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), in her first Q&A session in the legislature, Weng described such questioning as a “top-down” (上對下) relationship. Her interpretation was flagrantly unconstitutional, but it did signal how she viewed the legislature’s position relative to the executive branch.
Photo: Yang Kuo-wen, Taipei Times
The original legislation had been put in place after retired lieutenant general Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) went to Beijing to listen to a speech by PRC President Xi Jinping (習近平) in 2016. Wu later became an at-large legislator for the KMT who sat on the defense committee, causing considerable consternation at the time. He was replaced by Admiral Richard Chen (陳永康), who, disturbingly, also signed onto Weng’s bill to permit military personnel to participate in “united front” events.
PLAYING WITH THE LAW
Weng is the same person who has proposed amending the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法) so that the Constitutional Court may not proceed to rulings on constitutional matters unless two-thirds of the mandated 15 judges are present. The purpose of this bill is simple. This fall 7 justices of the court stepped down as required by their term limits, leaving the court with 8 at the moment. New justices are subject to approval by the legislature, controlled by the KMT and its puppet, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The KMT plan is simple. If the KMT refuses to approve new justices, then the Constitutional Court would cease to function, as the new law requires 10 justices to be present in order for the court to do its business. Since the president has no veto, without the Constitutional Court, no effective check on the power of the legislature would exist. This change would “subvert Taiwan’s constitutional democracy,” said New Power Party (NPP) Chair Claire Wang (王婉諭) at a protest last month.
The Constitutional Court’s power to keep the legislature under reins was displayed last month when it struck down most of the amendments passed by the legislature related to legislative oversight of the executive branch of government, saying that these were “unconstitutional.” The KMT and the TPP had described the amendments, a naked power grab intended to neuter the executive branch, as “reforms.”
The amendments that were struck down were intended to enable the legislature to compel government officials to testify to the legislature when summoned, and made “counterquestioning” the legislature during testimony punishable with fines and prison terms. It was obviously intended to ensure that the legislature could bring central government functioning to a halt by showering it with summons and contempt of legislature punishments. Weng was present at the Constitutional Court hearing on “counterquestioning.” She could not produce a single example of the law to support the idea, because the bill’s “penalty for counterquestioning” is the first such proposal anywhere.
As the Taipei Times reported, KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Tzu-ming (林思銘) told reporters that the court had unfairly sided with the DPP.
“Judicial independence is dead,” he said, “and we must speak out.”
The KMT’s sole response, very obviously, is to attack the legitimacy of the democratic process. After all, it wins if democracy fails.
‘TRAIN WRECK’
In August the head of the Citizen Congress Watch Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元) wrote that “the 11th session of the legislature is a train wreck, starting with Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) legislative malpractice through personally tallying barely announced open votes, conducted through a simple show of hands.”
He added that the “legislature’s actions are lamentable and a far cry from Citizen Congress Watch’s and many other civic groups’ expectations for legislative reform.”
Another move by the KMT-dominated legislature that has flown under many a radar is the re-apportionment legislation. The proposals made last month are meant to increase the proportion of taxes that go to local governments, rather than the central government. This has two obvious consequences. First, it will reduce the central government’s ability to control national finances and spend money on infrastructure and defense. Recall that the KMT plan to build highways on the east coast will also crowd out other forms of government spending, particularly defense. That is undoubtedly no coincidence.
Second, re-apportioning the local budget will expand the money flows to the cities and counties, which are now under majority KMT control. This will enable the pro-China side to tighten its grip on the local areas and local faction politics, while vastly increasing local government corruption. It will also freeze the local political economy, preventing from ever evolving an alternative to the construction-industrial state.
These moves to reduce or by-pass the authority of the executive branch are all driven by the central problem of the KMT: the DPP is likely to remain in control of the national government. The KMT’s plan is thus simply to render the national government superfluous. As long as it can keep the TPP under control, it can do whatever it likes.
Currently Taiwan operates under a semi-presidential system. The president appoints the cabinet but the government is headed by the premier. Under the constitution, if the legislature passes a no-confidence vote in the premier, the president can dismiss the legislature. That has never happened, and is highly unlikely to occur.
The one weakness of the KMT’s position is its dependence on the TPP for control of the legislature, currently mired in a vast and expanding corruption investigation. The TPP seems to have no agenda of its own, and does not use its leverage to extract concessions from the KMT for its own programs. It simply votes in lockstep with the KMT.
The DPP needs success in its quest to find some way to pry the TPP loose from the KMT’s grip on it. The nation’s future depends on it.
Notes from Central Taiwan is a column written by long-term resident Michael Turton, who provides incisive commentary informed by three decades of living in and writing about his adoptive country. The views expressed here are his own.
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