President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that screening of candidates for four seats on the Council of Grand Justices should be fast-tracked to ensure the court’s normal operations.
Speaking at the inaugural meeting of a seven-member panel formed earlier this week to screen candidates for the constitutional court bench, Ma said a short list of candidates should be finalized as soon as possible so that the Legislative Yuan can vote on it during the current session.
TERMS FINISHED
The terms of four of the 15 incumbent grand justices — Hsu Pi-hu (徐璧湖) Lin Tzu-yi (林子儀), Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) and Hsu Yu-hsiu (許玉秀) — will end on Sept. 30, and according to the Additional Articles of the Constitution, the president must nominate and appoint, with the consent of the legislature, four new justices to fill the positions.
Aiming to have the new -justices take the bench on Oct. 1 as required by existing regulations, the president wants the legislature to deal with nominations before it goes into summer recess at the end of May.
Grand justices are authorized to interpret the Constitution and unify the interpretation of laws and ordinances.
CRUCIAL ROLE
Ma said the role of grand justices is even more crucial in today’s judicial climate, where 76 percent of cases involving constitutional and legal interpretations are related to the public’s rights and interests.
OPEN PROCESS
Although haste was the theme in his address, Ma still asked members of the special panel to screen nominees based on a process that is open, fair and just.
Ma has named Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and six legal experts to staff the panel. Siew serves as the panel’s convener, while two former Judicial Yuan presidents, Weng Yueh-sheng (翁岳生) and Lai Ing-jaw (賴英照), will be its deputy conveners.
The four other members include former Judicial Yuan vice president Hsieh Tsai-chuan (謝在全) and three former justices — Wu Keng (吳庚), Wang Tze-chien (王澤鑑) and Wang Ho-hsiung (王和雄).
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS