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.
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