The Council of Grand Justices last Friday declared the National Communications Commission (NCC) unconstitutional, citing Article 4 of the Organic Law of the National Communications Commission (
Article 4 stipulates that commission members be selected according to the ratio of seats held by each political party in the legislature. While the article says that the commission should be composed of 13 members with either an academic background or practical experience in the fields of telecommunications, information technology, broadcasting, law, finance and economics, there are no restrictions regarding party affiliation.
Despite last Friday's ruling, the commission's nine remaining members decided on Monday to stay in office until Jan. 31, 2008, saying that if they quit now "it would be like leaving the engine of the NCC revving in neutral."
Commission Chairman Su Yeong-ching (
When the Cabinet first appealed the matter to the Council of Grand Justices, the commission members said they would resign if the justices ruled the agency unconstitutional. Why don't they have the backbone now to stick to that pledge? It was apparent from the very beginning that political interests would inevitably creep into the commission given the way it was set up.
Has the quality of the media environment or the quality of reporting improved since the commission commenced operations?
Instead, the only notable "accomplishment" of the commission to date was its speedy action against pirate radio stations in southern Taiwan early last month, after these stations reportedly aired malicious remarks against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Did the commission, however, say a word when media outlets reported what could be construed as threatening comments by Ma against President Chen Shui-bian (
The grand justices said that there should be a "grace period" before the commission is dissolved. This will pacify those who argue that the telecommunications and broadcasting industries would have no one to monitor them. But the chances are slim that the legislature will be able to revise the law and provide an oversight agency in a timely and rational manner, given the reaction of the KMT caucus to Monday's ruling.
The KMT caucus condemned Minister Without Portfolio Hsu Chih-hsiung (
In a normal democracy, the legislature would, upon being told by the nation's highest constitutional court that one of its laws was in error, quickly act to review and revise that regulation.
Taiwan's democracy is anything but normal and it would appear that the public has months of childish behavior from opposition parties to look forward to, while the NCC drifts in limbo until the current terms of the nation's lawmakers end in January 2008.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS