The Examination Yuan presidential and vice-presidential nominees yesterday faced a fusillade of questions from the legislature during a review session, with legislators from both the pan-blue and pan-green camp calling into question the institution’s function and reasons for its continued existence.
The legislature yesterday held the first meeting of an extraordinary plenary session to review President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) nominations to head the Examination Yuan.
Examination Yuan presidential nominee Wu Jin-lin (伍錦霖) and vice presidential nominee Kao Yuang-kuang (高永光) encountered legislators’ criticism that its members’ six-year terms in office are too long, and the overlapping functions of the Examination Yuan with the Executive Yuan, and that of the Control Yuan with the Legislative Yuan.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
People First Party Legislator Thomas Lee (李桐豪) said the public in general regard positions in the Examination Yuan as relatively laid-back affairs, in which the officials do little work, but earn large salaries.
Lee asked the two nominees for their views on trimming down the institution and shortening members’ six-year term of office.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said he would support the nominations this time, but it would be better to have both the Examination Yuan and Control Yuan abolished “for the sake of the nation’s competiveness and from the point of view of organizational restructuring.”
Lai cited a report from a KMT think tank and called the two institutions “chicken ribs,” a term used to refer to things of little value, and said that the Examination Yuan’s work overlaps with the Executive Yuan’s power over personnel administration, while the Control Yuan is involved in a turf battle with the Legislative Yuan over part of its investigation and impeachment rights.
“No problem would arise at all if these two units are obliterated now,” he said.
Both Wu and Kao said abolishing the two units would need further deliberation, with Wu saying that the civil service examination is only one of the Examination Yuan’s various jobs and as an independent branch “[its] function is still needed.”
Lai said he would propose, before the eventual dismantling of the two units, that the six-year terms of office be shortened to four years, and that the number of Executive Yuan members be cut to half or one-third of the current complement.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said the party has long been calling for amendments to the Constitution to abolish the institutions that Lai deemed unnecessary, “but it was the same Legislator Lai who had kept [along with other KMT lawmakers] obstructing my proposal to amend the Constitution.”
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