Members of a legislative committee yesterday failed to reach a consensus on whether to alter a regulation that would allow lawmakers to impeach the president or vice president for reasons other than sedition or treason.
While the Constitution does not set conditions for impeachment, the Law Governing Legislators' Exercise of Power (立法院職權行使法) states that the legislature can only impeach the president and vice president when they commit an act of sedition or treason.
Inter-party negotiations will be called to discuss articles committee members failed to concur on before the legal revisions proceed to the plenary legislative session for further deliberation.
Proposal
During a hearing held by the legislature's Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday morning, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) proposed to take out the conditions stipulated in Article 42 of the law while People First Party Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) proposed getting rid of the article altogether.
KMT Legislator Kao Su-po (高思博) said that the article runs counter to the Constitution, which does not specify conditions for impeachment.
Kao said that in the US, the president, vice president and all other civil servants can be impeached for treason, bribery or several other high crimes and misdemeanors.
"It is meaningless to set the conditions because prosecutors can launch an investigation if the president or vice president is suspected of committing an act of sedition or treason," he said.
DPP Legislator Chen Chin-de (陳金德), however, said that it was necessary to hold a public hearing and solicit further opinions.
The committee agreed to amend Article 44, which would ask the Council of Grand Justices, rather than the National Assembly, to conduct any impeachment trial.
The amendment was necessary after last year's constitutional amendments abolished the National Assembly.
The committee failed to see eye to eye on the amendment to Article 29 proposed by the KMT caucus.
The caucus proposed to increase the legislature's ratification threshold of the president's nominees from a simple majority to two thirds. It is the president's constitutional right to nominate the heads and members of the Control Yuan, Examination Yuan, Judicial Yuan and Council of Grand Justices.
Chen said that he was against the proposal because it would allow a minority of the legislature dictate the ratification process if they could muster the support of one third.
Because of the high legal threshold, Chen said that he was worried that it would encourage the nominees to court legislators sitting on the review committee as if they were running for an election.
Independent
"While the Control Yuan is supposed to be an independent body, you don't want the members acting like politicians," he said.
Chen was also opposed to another proposal from the KMT caucus, which would form an 11-member review committee made up of lawmakers in proportion to the seats each party holds in the legislature. Chen said that the formation of the committee was unnecessary because the legislature's existing committees could handle the job.
With the attempt to improve legislative efficiency, committee members agreed to shorten the period of cross-party negotiations from four months to two.
Currently, bills which fail to win the endorsement of all caucuses during the four-month negotiation period will be dealt with at the plenary legislative session.
Committee members also approved the recording of the cross-party talks process, both in audio and video format.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
RSS