Hualien County Councilor Liu Hsiao-mei (劉曉玫) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday protested Hualien County Council’s decision last week to temporarily suspend her after she opposed a bill to adjust the schedule of the council’s plenary question-and-answer session.
Liu’s rights as county councilor are suspended for three months.
Liu decried the council’s decision yesterday at a news conference in Taipei, saying that suspending the rights of an elected county councilor is both unprecedented and illegal.
Quoting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Hualien County Councilor Ho Li-tai (何禮臺), who accused her of “sowing serious discord” in the council,” she said it is wrong to simply pursue “harmony” in the county council, as harmony can be the root of corruption.
She said she had not violated any of the discipline committee’s statutes and that the committee’s sudden suspension of her rights had violated procedural justice.
Hualien is a pan-blue stronghold and she said it was obvious who was behind her suspension.
The ruling by the council’s discipline committee came after Ho, who proposed the bill, filed a grievance with the committee, saying that Liu personally attacked him with her remarks during a regular council session in May to vote on the proposal.
Ho proposed adjusting the schedule for the plenary question-and-answer session from the current 12 days to six days to allow county councilors more time to carry out inspections in their respective constituencies.
He previously said he would consider legal action against Liu after Liu repeatedly said his proposal was meant to “protect” independent Hualien County Commissioner Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁) from public scrutiny.
Liu ridiculed the remark by saying that if Ho did not sue her, he would be a “clown,” which angered Ho and prompted him to file the complaint.
The committee ordered Liu’s suspension at a meeting presided over by KMT Hualien County Councilor Lin Chiu-mei (林秋美). The suspension is to take effect next week, meaning that Liu would be denied access to council meetings during the period.
Prior to the ruling, Liu questioned Fu about the county’s budget.
“More than 80 percent of Hualien’s finances rely on central government funding. Also, the county has a higher percentage of public servants and military personnel than Miaoli. If its spending is not closely watched, it risks becoming the next Miaoli,” Liu said.
The Miaoli County Government earlier this month said it was mired in debt and sought help from the central government, who issued NT$800 million (US$25.35 million) to the county on the condition that it publishes its balance sheet every month.
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
Two people were killed and another nine injured yesterday after being stung by hornets while hiking in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), with officials warning against wearing perfume or straying from trails during the autumn to avoid the potentially deadly creatures. Seven of the hikers only sustained minor injuries after being stung along the Bafenliao Hiking Trail (八分寮) and made their way down the mountain with a guide, the New Taipei City Fire Department said. Four of them — all male — sustained more serious injuries and were assisted when leaving the mountain, the department said. Two of them, a man surnamed
CHANGES: While NCCU opened the nation’s first co-ed dorm in Mucha, a recent survey showed that Taiwanese are in favor of abolishing gender segregation at high schools National Chengchi University (NCCU) has opened a co-ed dormitory, a first in Taiwan among state-funded Taiwan universities. The 22 duplexes are at the renovated “Huanan New Village,” in Taipei City’s Mucha (木柵) area, near the NCCU campus, a school official said yesterday. Twenty-two out of 37 group applications were selected in a lottery draw to select who would be chosen to live in the units, which can either be shared by up to eight students if the unit has four bedrooms, or up to 10 students if it is a five-bedroom unit, officials said. Completed in 1964 for campus staff housing,
The Ministry of the Interior has banned the use of mirror photos on national identification cards. Taiwanese nationals were required to prepare a front-facing “half-body” color photo or digital photo taken within the past two years when applying for an identification card for the first time, However, the ministry has since removed the term “half-body” in the updated regulation due to complaints regarding its vagueness. Published on Tuesday last week, the amended regulation on the formats and photos of national identification cards includes the stipulation that the length of the portrait from the top of the head to the bottom of the
RSS