Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators yesterday set up a task force to investigate the National Communications Commission (NCC) and affiliated organizations under the Legislative Yuan’s new powers of inquiry.
The probe, the first using the controversial powers, would investigate allegations that the government influenced the NCC to approve Mirror Media’s application to establish Mirror TV.
A motion, jointly proposed by the legislature’s Transportation Committee and the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, called for establishing a task force that would begin an investigation if at least one-third of its members are present, adding that all resolutions must receive supporting votes from half of all attending members.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Issues cannot be voted on if there are only three attending members at a meeting, which can be conducted behind closed doors, the motion says.
The task force was authorized to start its investigation yesterday and continue until Dec. 31, a deadline that can be extended if task force members consent, the motion says.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said the legislature should have been notified if a joint meeting of caucuses was to be held and that the legislature already has a task force to address the Mirror TV issue.
Having two committees investigate the same issue contravenes the law, it said.
Established in March, the Transportation Committee’s investigative task force said its mandate has ended, effective immediately, adding that it would turn over all its findings.
The committee’s task force said that the NCC was uncooperative throughout the investigation and had used technicalities to delay the process.
Mirror TV yesterday said that despite the passage of the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法), its legality is in question as it awaits a Constitutional Court review.
The government’s establishing three separate committees to investigate one media company was unprecedented and harms journalistic liberties, the channel said, referring to the committee formed in March, a task force that TPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said he would establish and the current special cross-committee task force.
The company said that that it has provided statements and proof that its establishment was in full accordance with the law, adding that the legislators’ actions were regrettable.
Mirror TV has undergone the longest review in Taiwan’s history and was also the first to be targeted with 42 unequal addendums to its applications, it said.
Despite these challenges the company’s intent on providing media oversight has not changed, it added.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS