Details of

 the controversial bill

The web page is being edited. 

We will update the information as soon as possible.

Taiwan People's Party(TPP) 

Chinese Nationalist Party(KMT) 

Democratic Progressive Party(DPP) 

Law on the Exercise of Powers of the Legislative Yuan

The TPP and the KMT advocated that the President's State of the Union report should have real-time questions and answers.

     According to current regulations in Taiwan, the Legislative Yuan can invite the president to deliver a state of the nation report during its annual gathering, which means asking the president to explain important policies related to national security or presidential powers. Legislators can raise questions after listening to the report, and the president will give additional explanations or reports after agreeing.


     The function of the Legislative Yuan is mainly to "supervise the administration of the Executive Yuan" rather than "supervise the president."

     The president is directly elected by the people and is therefore accountable to the people, not to the legislative Yuan. If it adopts a question-and-answer format, it will in disguise make the president responsible to the Legislative Yuan.


     The President should submit a State of the Nation Report to the Legislative Yuan before February 1 each year, and go to the Legislative Yuan to report on the State of the Nation on March 1. As for the new president, he must submit a State of the Union report within two weeks of taking office and report to Congress within a month.


     If the State of the Nation report allows for immediate questions and answers, it will cause a problem of inconsistency between the powers and responsibilities of executive and legislative officials when the president is accountable to the Legislative Yuan.

     The Constitution does not give the Legislative Yuan the power to "question" the president, which means that the question-and-answer method is unconstitutional.

Investigative powers: The KMT advocates the establishment of an investigation committee.

　　The investigative power of the Legislative Yuan is a necessary auxiliary power to exercise its constitutional powers. There are restrictions on the persons and matters that the Legislative Yuan can investigate. Except for matters necessary for investigation, only those that are significantly related to the constitutional powers of the Legislative Yuan can be investigated.


     The investigation committee is a temporary investigation organization established in accordance with legal procedures to verify specific issues. Investigation of specific issues is an investigative activity carried out by state power agencies for the correct exercise of their powers. It is an extraordinary measure for state power agencies to exercise their supervisory powers. 

     The review committee may set up a review task force, and when necessary, may review the original documents of the matters involved in the motion referred to in the preceding paragraph from the relevant authorities upon the resolution of the Council.


     In the "Law on the Exercise of Powers of the Legislative Yuan", it is proposed to amend Chapter 8 "Handling of Document Retrieval" to "Exercise of Investigation Power" and add Chapter 9-1 "Conducting Hearings".

     Change "referral" to "investigation committee" and set up an "investigation task force" to request relevant agencies to provide necessary information and hold hearings. 


     Chapter 8 is revised to "Hearing Investigation and Document Retrieval"


     Dual-track system of investigation power and review power. For matters that are significantly related to the powers granted to the Legislative Yuan by the Constitution, a resolution may be made to establish an investigation committee, and the committee may establish a task force for investigation.


     The power of investigation is an extraordinary means and is not suitable for use in ordinary situations. As the scope of subjects under investigation increases, we are more likely to inadvertently infringe on the power of other state agencies to independently exercise their powers.


     Simply put, if a regime emerges in the future that wants to be authoritarian, it will be able to use investigative powers to expand its ability to control.

Contempt of parliament.

     The crime of contempt of Congress is part of the draft amendments to the criminal law and administrative law proposed by the KMT and the TPP.


     Chapter 5-1 "Contempt of Congress" was added, specifying that officials who make false statements when attending a hearing and being questioned will be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, short-term detention, or a fine of not more than NTD 200,000 dollars.

     If an administrative official conceals his knowledge or makes a false statement even though he knows it to be untrue when accepting a general question from the legislators, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than one year, short-term detention, or a fine of not more than NTD 100,000 dollars; and if an administrative official counter-questions during the general question, he or she shall be stopped by the chairman. Anyone who continues will be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than 6 months, short-term detention, or a fine of not more than NTD 15,000 dollars.(See sub-page for details- Legal knowledge)


　　According to the draft amendment to Article 25 "Law on the Exercise of Powers of the Legislative Yuan", if officials exceed the scope of the inquiry when answering questions, they may not refuse to answer without the consent of the chairman or the answer does not involve confidentiality, nor may they conceal information or make false statements; in case of violation, the chairman may be allowed to stopped and require the person being questioned to give a true and complete answer. 


　　Originally, the KMT's bill included everyone who spoke to the Legislative Yuan, but later the scope was narrowed to administrative officials, that is, the general public will not be held accountable by this criminal law (Article 21 of the amendment, passed).

     In order to exercise its investigative power, the investigation committee or task force requires government agencies, military forces, legal persons, groups or relevant persons in society to provide relevant documents, files and information within five days. (Amendment Article 47, passed)

     The so-called "legal persons, groups or relevant persons in society" refers to you and me, which means that we will be regulated by administrative law.

     Any legal person, people's organization or relevant person in society who refuses, delays or fails to provide information may be fined up to NTD $100,000 by resolution of the Legislative Yuan, and may be fined consecutively. (Amendment Article 48, passed)


     It is undoubtedly right to require officials to speak correctly in Congress, but incorporating this requirement into criminal offenses clearly violates the principle of proportionality in the Constitution.(See sub-page for details- Legal knowledge)


    To put it simply, using the Criminal Code to deal with lies just like getting a criminal record for accidentally parking illegally. It is an excessive punishment measure. The necessity of punishment should be weighed to ensure that such sanctions do not unduly infringe on freedom of expression.

Right to consent to personnel matters.

     The power of personnel consent refers to the ability of the Legislative Yuan to agree or veto on the appointment and transfer of administrative officials.


     Hearings may be held for by-election of the vice president, impeachment of the president and vice president, and personnel consent cases, and the review shall not be less than one month.


     A public hearing must be held before the right to consent to personnel is exercised, and the review process must not be less than two months.

 

     To supplement the supplementary exercise of consent rights, a public hearing may be held.

Three  Transportation  Construction.

　　The Kuomintang recently introduced three bills in the Legislative Yuan in the name of building eastern Taiwan.

     "Special Bill for the Construction of the East Extension of National Highway 6 to Hualien",  "Special draft regulations for the construction of high-speed railway around the island" and "Special Bill for eastern Taiwan Expressway Construction"

     The following is a summary of the bill contents of Legislator FU, KUN-CHI.


     This project aims to build a high-speed rail around the island and extend the railway to the eastern Taiwan.

     Due to the high speed, high-speed rail must be built separately to avoid accidents. Taiwan is a place with frequent earthquakes. The foundation needs to be very stable. Special attention needs to be paid in places with serious ground subsidence. Monitoring will be carried out every day and appropriate deceleration will be carried out.

　　Eastern Taiwan is undoubtedly the area with the most severe and frequent earthquakes. Several major earthquakes just occurred in April this year, the risks of building high-speed rail in the eastern region far outweigh its economic benefits.。


     The purpose of this case is to improve the construction of highway facilities in eastern Taiwan.


     The purpose of this case is to improve the construction of highway facilities in Huadong area.

     Building tunnels inherently requires a lot of technology and manpower. The Central Mountain Range is the largest mountain range in Taiwan. The ecological, geological, road safety and other issues involved in opening it cannot be ignored, and the decision cannot be made hastily by a vote.


     According to the proposed draft, the above-mentioned transportation construction is expected to be completed within ten years. However, such a huge bill that still needs to be discussed and evaluated should be carefully thought through and communicated with multiple parties, rather than passed hastily.

Other Issues

Procedural Justice.

     The so-called procedural justice means that in the process of handling things, everything is legal and in compliance with rational norms. For example, the police must have a search ticket before they can conduct a search, and the court must declare guilt before locking up people. These are all manifestations of procedural justice.

     The key point is that no matter how controversial the content of the bill is, the process of passing it must go through legal and stipulated procedures.



(1.)No consensus was reached in the party group negotiations, so it went straight to the second reading.


(2.)There were many errors in the show of hands vote counting process (for example, in the vote to extend the meeting on May 17, there were only 108 people present but 110 votes were issued)


(3.)The motions reviewed by the House of Representatives on May 21 were not announced until the morning of that day(See sub-page for details- Legal knowledge)

Draft amendment to the Election and Recall Law.

     The original "Public officials can only be removed one year after taking office" is added with "Cannot file a joint signature within one year"

     The threshold for passing a recall case is "the number of yes votes exceeds the number of dissent votes, and the number of yes votes reaches more than a quarter of the total number of electors in the original electoral district" and a new condition is "and the number of yes votes exceeds the number of votes for the person being recalled."