Legislators were split along party lines yesterday on the Executive Yuan’s decision to not countersign amendments to a local revenue-sharing law passed by the legislature last month.
The amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) would provide local governments a larger share of the central government’s revenue each year, which the Executive Yuan said “cannot be implemented,” as it would push the central government’s debt next year beyond the statutory ceiling.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus chief executive Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said that the bill passed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which together hold a majority in the legislature, did not have public support and harms the national interest.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
In the past, the bill could be brought to the Constitutional Court for review, but that was not possible following amendments the KMT and TPP pushed through to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法), Chung said.
Those changes effectively paralyzed the court, and with no injunction order to halt the bill, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) has no option but to not countersign it to protect the constitutional system, he said.
DPP headquarters added that because asking the legislature to reconsider the amendments and seeking constitutional interpretation were denied or unavailable, the Executive Yuan could only seek relief by “not countersigning” the bill.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
DPP spokesman Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城) said that not countersigning the bill is a constitutional remedy available to the Executive Yuan, and if opposition lawmakers disagree with the Cabinet’s decision, they can pass a motion of no confidence and force the Cabinet to either resign or call for a legislative election.
KMT caucus secretary-general Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said that the no-confidence option was a DPP scheme that his party would not fall for.
A legislative election would need to be held 60 days after a no-confidence vote, giving President William Lai (賴清德) more authority without a legislature, he said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Calling Cho a disposable dishwashing sponge that Lai can replace any time, Lo said that the president could appoint a new premier who also does not countersign the bill, creating a vicious cycle.
The KMT said that under Article 72 of the Constitution, the president “shall” promulgate bills passed by legislature within 10 days of receiving them, which would have been yesterday for the amendments.
Article 3 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) states that should more than half of legislators uphold the original bill, the president “shall” immediately accept it, the KMT said.
As Lai and Cho have decided not to countersign, not to promulgate and not enact the amended act, they are defying the law, it said.
TPP Chairman and caucus whip Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said that in an attempt to fight against the legislative majority of the opposition parties, Lai’s administration, in refusing to countersign the bill, was pushing Taiwan’s constitutional democracy off a cliff.
Citing Cho’s remark in a Facebook post on Sunday that he “went all out to block a ball from entering the net, to stop any unconstitutional act from going one step too far,” Huang said that what the premier called “unconstitutional” was a bill passed by the legislature, and his “blocking a ball” was not accepting the legislature’s resolution by not countersigning the bill.
“The constitutional meaning of ‘countersigning’ should not be distorted,” he said.
Citing Article 37 of the Constitution and constitutional interpretations No. 419 and No. 627, Huang said the “countersignature” mechanism is for countering the president’s power, not for rejecting bills passed by the legislature, which he called a distortion of constitutional norms and an abuse of power.
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