After nine rounds of cross-party negotiations, the pan-blue dominated legislature yesterday passed the long-anticipated organic bill of the national communications commission (NCC), paving the way for the abolition of the Government Information Office (GIO).
The law states that the NCC will be established under the Executive Yuan as an independent entity. It will be the sole supervisory body of the nation's telecommunications and media industries.
Currently, the media industry is regulated by the GIO, while the telecommunications industry falls under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
Upset by the outcome, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said it would not rule out requesting a constitutional interpretation from the Council of Grand Justices.
"We feel deep regret over the passage of the law because the NCC should be an independent entity, free from political interference," said DPP Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), who also serves as the director of the party's Policy Committee, after the bill cleared the legislature late yesterday afternoon.
Ker said the caucus will consult legal experts and the Presidential Office on the possibility of filing for a constitutional interpretation.
He urged the public to closely supervise the future operations of the NCC review committee.
The pan-blue controlled legislature voted 112 to 98, with no abstentions, in favor of the contentious article four of the NCC bill proposed by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) caucuses.
The bill specifies that the political parties nominate 15 candidates for the NCC committee, with each party's number of selections in proportion to the number of seats they have in the legislature.
The premier nominates three more candidates, for a total of 18 candidates.
An 11-member review committee will then elect 13 NCC members from the pool, with three-fifths of the review committee's consent required. The review committee will be made up of academics and experts recommended by political parties in proportion to each party's number of seats in the legislature.
To fill any vacancies that remain if fewer than 13 NCC members are chosen in the first round of the ballot, the consent of one-half of the review committee is needed.
The premier will then nominate the 13 recommended NCC members seven days after the review committee's selections, pending the ratification of the legislature.
The DPP caucus, however, said that this was tantamount to letting political power extend into the independent committee.
The plenary legislative sitting began at 9am but Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
The two-hour meeting ended fruitlessly though, as the two camps refused to budge over the approval threshold of the review committee.
A DPP caucus meeting called at noon endorsed the pan-blue's proposal, but the caucus said it would like to see at least half, or seven, of the NCC members obtain three-fifths of the review committee's consent before the second round of voting was allowed.
Another cross-party meeting began at 2:30pm but went nowhere. The DPP shifted its position during the talks and proposed a one-phase approval threshold of three fifths.
Wang then ruled that the matter be settled by a vote, while the less controversial articles of the bill proceeded to further readings.
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