Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

MAC to investigate ‘united front’ claims

Taipei Times

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday vowed to investigate claims made in a YouTube video about China’s efforts to politically influence young Taiwanese and encourage them to apply for Chinese ID cards.

The council’s comments follow Saturday’s release of a video by Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) and YouTuber “Pa Chiung (八炯)” on China’s “united front” tactics. It is the second video on the subject the pair have released this month.

In the video, Chen visits the Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Park in Quanzhou in China’s Fujian Province and the Strait Herald news platform in Xiamen, China.

Protect the Judicial Yuan from the KMT

Chen Tsai-neng 陳財能

Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) — who once endured the hardship of living under an authoritarian political system and arduously led a quiet revolution — once said: “Democratic issues must be solved with democratic means.” Today, as Taiwanese are faced with the malicious subversion of our country’s democratic constitutional order, we must not panic. Rather, we should start by taking democratic action to rescue the Constitutional Court.

As Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) leads the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) in strangling Taiwan’s judiciary and depriving individuals of the right to recall and development, Taiwanese are filled with anxiety. In response, various countermeasures have been proposed — the Executive Yuan could refuse to countersign, President William Lai (賴清德) could refuse to promulgate the law, a constitutional interpretation could be conducted but not a review, Lai could personally step in to negotiate internal disputes or a mass recall movement could be initiated.

Bad laws are a threat to democracy

Yao Meng-chang

It is hard to imagine that the Legislative Yuan passed three major bills in one day — amendments to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法) and the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) — amid chaotic clashes.

The legislative process of these three laws violates the spirit of deliberative democracy. Despite having gone through many changes and compromises, the draft bills were hastily passed without discussion and clause-by-clause examination.

Consequently, the legislative intent and purpose — which would be made clear in the discussion during the legislative process — would never be known, causing difficulties in applying, teaching and interpreting the laws.

Safeguards against harmful laws

Chuang Sheng-rong 莊勝榮

Following the controversial passage of amendments to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法), the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) and the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party legislators, it has been said that President William Lai (賴清德) could apply Article 37 of the Constitution and simply not promulgate the amendments, while the premier could refuse to countersign them into law.

Unfortunately, presidential promulgation and the premier’s countersignature are legal duties, which neither has the power to refuse. Such a refusal would only add to the chaos, break with constitutional procedure and bring the nation closer to a constitutional crisis. This stuff is constitutional law and governance 101.

More Articles...