Two Aboriginal legislators questioned the integrity of Control Yuan nominee Hsu Ping-chin (�?i) yesterday during the legislature’s final question-and-answer session ahead of the vote on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) nominees for the yuan.
Hsu is the only Aborigine on list of Control Yuan nominees.
Non-Partisan Solidarity Union Legislator May Chin (高金素梅) said she had received a complaint that Hsu had allegedly sexually harassed students when he taught at National Ilan University.
Chin, who is an Atayal like Hsu, said that Hsu had been forced to retire in 2003 because of the alleged harassment. She said she received the information from a friend of Hsu’s wife, but could not reveal the identity of her source. She urged Ma to investigate the allegation.
Another female lawmaker, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ying (陳瑩), joined Chin in making the accusation.
Hsu defended himself, swearing on his life that he was innocent.
“I would die in a car accident if I had really done it,” he said.
Hsu later tried to explain himself to Chen after the question-and-answer session ended.
DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-ching (葉宜津) criticized Hsu as biased and unfit to be a Control Yuan member. Citing the biography of Hsu provided to the legislature, Yeh questioned Hsu’s ability to transcend party lines to supervise public officials.
“[I] became the nation’s first Aboriginal doctor of law researching the Three Principles of the People after having constantly pursued advanced study of Sun Yat-sen’s (孫中山) ideas,” Yeh quoted Hsu as saying his biographical sketch.
Chin said Hsu was an Atayal who knew nothing about the difficulties of Aborigines but only how to fawn on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Hsu told legislators that he would transcend party lines even though he believed in Sun’s ideas.
The fate of the 29 Control Yuan nominees has been the subject of speculation from media outlets, given the sparks between some of the nominees and legislators during the extraordinary interpellation sessions over the past three days.
Some KMT legislators have threatened to vote down nominees such as former DPP legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄), who was named vice president of the yuan, and former Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator Chien Lin Hui-chun (錢林慧君) and Chen Yao-chang (陳耀昌), a former deputy director of the “red shirt” campaign to oust former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Asked for a comment, KMT caucus secretary-general Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) said he would prefer it if KMT headquarters would allow its legislators to make their own decisions on the nominees.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow