President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) should push for a constitutional change to eliminate the Control Yuan rather than continuing to nominate new members as terms expire, civic groups said yesterday at an academic forum.
“Even though this issue has been put on the back burner, we expect a list of nominees to emerge soon, making it an important issue to consider given that both Tsai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) promised to abolish the Control Yuan,” Taipei Society head Chiou Wen-tsong (邱文聰) said, adding that his group and other participants all refused the Presidential Office’s invitation to recommend Control Yuan candidates because of their stance.
“A national human rights commission should be established, and the constitutional amendment process should be initiated to fulfill the DPP’s electoral promise to push for the Control Yuan’s abolition. There has never been a better time to make the push,” Taiwan Association for Human Rights executive board member Liu Ching-yi (劉靜怡) said, adding that current human rights work was too reliant on the goodwill of individual Control Yuan members.
The Control Yuan has long opposed the establishment of a separate human rights commission, claiming that investing a commission with investigatory and censorship powers would infringe on its own authority.
“It clearly does not have good judgement on what laws and governmental behavior are in accordance with human rights standards,” Covenants Watch executive board member Huang Song-lih (黃嵩立) said.
A Control Yuan ruling that faulted the executive branch for failing to take action against uncompensated use of government land set into motion a wave of forced eviction cases against disadvantaged residents, he said.
“The motivation behind the government’s move to nominate officials looks suspiciously like sharing political spoils,” Taiwan Democracy Watch president Chen Chao-ju (陳昭如) said, calling for Tsai to explain how the nominations would tie into her pledge to abolish the Control Yuan.
DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said he had initially been opposed to making new nominations, but had been told by Tsai that making the nominations was her constitutional duty and she hoped to use them to strengthen the Control Yuan’s supervision of the judicial branch.
“The Control Yuan should be abolished and a national human rights commission should be established, while the need for fundamental constitutional change remains the same,” he said, comparing the current Republic of China constitutional framework to a piece of illegal architecture that the DPP would to aim to gradually “shake loose,” because the high threshold for constitutional amendments makes “complete demolition” difficult.
The German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday expressed “grave concerns” after Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) reiterated the city-state’s opposition to “Taiwanese independence” during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強). In Singapore on Saturday, Wong and Li discussed cross-strait developments, the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Prime Minister Wong reiterated that Singapore has a clear and consistent ‘one China’ policy and is opposed to Taiwan independence,” it said. MOFA responded that it is an objective fact and a common understanding shared by many that the Republic of China (ROC) is an independent, sovereign nation, with world-leading
Temperatures in northern Taiwan are forecast to reach as high as 30°C today, as an ongoing northeasterly seasonal wind system weakens, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said yesterday that with the seasonal wind system weakening, warmer easterly winds would boost the temperature today. Daytime temperatures in northern Taiwan and Yilan County are expected to range from 28°C to 30°C today, up about 3°C from yesterday, Tseng said. According to the CWA, temperature highs in central and southern Taiwan could stay stable. However, the weather is expected to turn cooler starting tonight as the northeasterly wind system strengthens again
The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) has been investigating nine shell companies working with Prince Holding Group, and the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office is seeking further prosecution of alleged criminals, a source said yesterday. The nine companies and three Taiwanese nationals were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Oct. 14 as Specially Designated Nationals as a result of a US federal court indictment. Prince Holding founder Chen Zhi (陳志) has been charged with fraud, conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding’s suspected forced-labor camps in Cambodia, the indictment says. Intelligence shared between Taiwan,
RSS