A motion to impeach President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday was placed on the agenda for a Legislative Yuan meeting on Friday, while opposition lawmakers formally filed a request with the Control Yuan to initiate an impeachment investigation against Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰).
The Legislative Yuan’s Procedure Committee met yesterday to set the legislative agenda from Friday to Tuesday next week.
The agenda passed under the opposition’s majority included impeachment proposals from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), while discussion of bills on cross-strait relations, national defense and the Executive Yuan’s version of the fiscal planning bill were postponed.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
The KMT and TPP would continue to discuss the impeachment procedure, which would include asking Lai to address the Legislative Yuan, and holding public hearings at the legislature and other events throughout the nation, KMT caucus secretary-general Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said after the meeting.
The impeachment vote would take place on about May 20, as the opposition parties need to reach a consensus first, Lo said.
Article 4-7 of the of the Additional Articles of the Constitution (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that the Legislative Yuan can initiate impeachment against the president if more than one-half of legislators agree, and the motion would be passed only if two-thirds of legislators agree.
If passed, the case would then proceed to the Constitutional Court, where two-thirds of the justices must vote for impeachment.
As the opposition parties do not have a two-thirds majority, the impeachment would not pass, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Yi-chuan (王義川) said.
The opposition is insisting on going through the impeachment process to force Lai to address the legislature, looking for an excuse to openly criticize him, Wang said.
Wang urged the opposition to safeguard the country, rather than paralyzing parts of the government.
The KMT caucus proposed to impeach Lai for allegedly contravening Article 72 of the Constitution in his refusal to promulgate amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) passed by the Legislative Yuan.
Meanwhile, KMT and TPP lawmakers went to the Control Yuan in Taipei to formally request an impeachment investigation into Cho.
While the impeachment process for presidents and vice presidents are initiated by a vote in the legislature and decided by the Constitutional Court, public officials — including the premier — are impeached by the Control Yuan.
The grounds for impeachment include alleged refusal to implement laws already in effect, illegal reduction of local general subsidies and using the countersignature system as a veto tool, they said.
KMT Legislator Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) accused Cho of contravening the separation of powers by failing to allocate budgets for military and police benefits as required by law, and refusing to countersign the fiscal allocation budget and a bill to halt cuts to public servant pensions passed by the legislature.
Cho dismissed the impeachment push against him, saying that his focus remains on economic governance.
Additional reporting by Lin Hsin-han
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