The Legislative Yuan’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday approved a proposal that would tighten travel restrictions on employees of the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology.
The draft amendments to the Act for the Establishment of the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (國家中山科學研究院設置條例) stipulate that institute employees must obtain a permit for travel abroad.
The Executive Yuan said that the bill sets standards for protection of the institute’s technical information that are comparable to those of the National Security Bureau, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟), Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) and Wang Mei-hui (王美惠) each submitted a version of the amendments to the committee, which had to be reconciled with the Executive Yuan’s proposal.
Chao proposed giving the institute the power to authorize travel for employees who have no access to sensitive information, while the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) should apply to other institute employees.
After consulting with government officials, lawmakers on the committee voted unanimously to pass the Executive Yuan’s version, which gives the defense ministry the discretion to specify the restriction’s applicability and the standards for approving foreign travel.
Promulgated by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2014, the act was written to redefine the institute as an organization controlled by the Executive Yuan.
The act gives the institute flexibility in making decisions about its organization, personnel structure and budget utilization, lawmakers said.
Lawmakers across party lines agreed that the institute’s limited ability to hire military service members had impeded efforts to cultivate technology expertise at the National Defense University’s Chung Cheng Institute of Technology.
DPP Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Yu-ling (呂玉玲) separately proposed bills to reform the institute.
After deliberations, the Legislative Yuan reconciled and amended the DPP and KMT bills with the government’s support.
The law stipulates that the institute is no longer subject to the limitation of having no more than 858 military personnel on its payroll and that the defense ministry should propose exchange programs with the institute within six months of the act’s promulgation.
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