The legislature asked the Presidential Office yesterday to provide information on the permanent residency and dual nationality status on Control Yuan and Examination Yuan nominees for legislators’ reference before they can approve the nominees.
Legislators from across party lines reached a consensus yesterday during cross-party negotiations in the wake of recent concerns over the US green card status of several nominees.
The dispute over nominees’ permanent residency status intensified after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) accused Examination Yuan vice presidential nominee Wu Chin-lin (伍錦霖) of having applied for a green card.
Both Examination Yuan nominees Tsai Shih-yuan (蔡式淵) and Tsai Bih-hwang (蔡璧煌) have also obtained green cards, Kuan said.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said after the negotiations yesterday that the legislators agreed that the nominees’ permanent residency and dual nationality status should serve as a key reference before deciding to approve the list.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) submitted his nomination list to the legislature yesterday afternoon. The legislature will vote on the Control Yuan nominees on July 4 and Examination Yuan nominees on July 11.
According to the Law Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法), the nominations require the approval of more than half of all sitting legislators.
The Control Yuan — the country’s top supervisory body, which monitors and arbitrates matters concerning elected officials and senior civil servants — has been empty since the term of office of the previous members expired on Jan. 31, 2005, following a pan-blue camp boycott of former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) nominees.
The term of the current Examination Yuan members will expire on Aug. 31. Their successors will be sworn in on Sept. 1.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said yesterday that Presidential Office Secretary-General Chan Chun-po (詹春柏) would lead the nominees on a visit to the legislature tomorrow as a courtesy to the lawmaking body.
Wang said the visit was organized to prevent nominees making individual visits to seek support from legislators. While Wang Jin-pyng and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus have agreed to meet the nominees, Wang Yu-chi said they were still consulting with other party caucuses.
As both governing and opposition parties reached a consensus yesterday to request that the Presidential Office determine whether any of the nominees hold a US green card or other permanent residency, Wang Yu-chi said they would conduct an investigation and send a copy of the results to the legislature.
Meanwhile, the DPP legislative caucus complained yesterday that the professional experience of the nominees had not been stated clearly enough.
“I feel humiliated and ignored. If the background of the nominees is not clarified, we will boycott the review process,” DPP legislative caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) told a news conference yesterday morning.
Lai said the Presidential Office had submitted the resumes of all the nominees to the legislature so that lawmakers could review them before they launch the approval process.
The resumes, however, were too short and too simple, Lai said.
“The resumes do not even contain their academic background or work experience,” Lai said. “It is our job to review the president’s nominees, but how are we going to do that when we do not know anything about them?”
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