The Presidential Office yesterday announced the list of 15 candidates who President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will nominate to serve as new members of the Council of Grand Justices.
The list of nominees includes three women which the government says shows the value its places on women's rights.
The president also nominated the incumbent Judicial Yuan President Weng Yueh-sheng (
Presidential Office Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (
"The Presidential Office will present the nominees to the Legislative Yuan in late May in order to get the legislators' consent," Chiou said.
The main mission of the Council of Grand Justices, whose term in office is eight years, is interpreting the Constitution and unifying the interpretation of laws and ordinances.
Fifteen new grand justices are scheduled to take office in October.
Only three incumbent grand justices have been nominated by Chen, including Lin Young-mou (
The three women candidates are Supreme Court judge Hsu Pi-hu (
According to constitutional ammendments passed in 2000, the Judicial Yuan shall have 15 grand justices, of which one is the president and another is the vice president of the Judicial Yuan.
The KMT-PFP alliance in the Legislative Yuan announced yesterday that it would approve only 10 of the nominees on the list, saying that the others are pro-DPP and are therefore not qualified because they cannot be impartial and objective.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
EARTHQUAKE: Taipei and New Taipei City accused a construction company of ignoring the Circular MRT’s original design, causing sections to shift by up to 92cm The Taipei and New Taipei City governments yesterday said they would seek NT$1.93 billion (US$58.6 million) in compensation from the company responsible for building the Circular MRT Line, following damage sustained during an earthquake in April last year that had shuttered a section for months. BES Engineering Corp, a listed company under Core Pacific Group, was accused of ignoring the original design when constructing the MRT line, resulting in negative shear strength resistance and causing sections of the rail line between Jhonghe (中和) and Banciao (板橋) districts to shift by up to 92cm during the April 3 earthquake. The pot bearings on