Lawmakers across party lines on the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday expressed concern about the efficiency, transparency and scale of the Council of Grand Justices’ handling of constitutional interpretations.
In a review of a draft amendment to the Act of Interpretation Procedure For Grand Justices (司法院大法官審理案件法), the committee asked the Judicial Yuan to expedite the process of constitutional interpretations and to increase the ratio of cases received.
The committee also asked to allow the deliberations behind interpretations to be posted on the Internet.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井) and Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), along with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators You Mei-nu (尤美女) and Wu Yi-chen (吳宜臻), proposed a draft act similar to the Fair and Speedy Criminal Trials Act (刑事妥速審判法) on the grounds that the council’s interpretations took too long and did not adequately protect the rights of the people.
Liao said that the average time it took the council to accept and close a constitutional interpretation case in the period between 2010 and last year was 692 days. Cases that the council dismissed averaged 101 days in length.
KMT Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said there were 3,911 applications for constitutional interpretations between 2003 and last year, adding that only 143 cases received an interpretation, while 3,616 were dismissed.
Those figures represent a dismissal rate of 92.4 percent, Lu said.
DPP legislators Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and You said that parts of basic rights were often lost in administrative procedures, adding that although there was nothing illegal, the council should also consider introducing the German system of “constitutional complaint.”
In Germany, citizens may make a complaint to the German Federal Constitutional Court if they feel the state has infringed on their basic rights.
However, the Constitutional Court has the right to only choose submissions that can be expected to result in verdicts that affect basic rights.
The proposed amendment would set a deadline for the grand justices to offer information on a case, and would enable citizens to easily access information about the cases on the Internet.
Article 32 of the draft amendment states that the Council of Grand Justices should respond within six months on whether an appeal is eligible for a constitutional interpretation meeting.
The same article also states that the council should also arrive at a conclusion for accepted cases within half a year.
Article 75 of the amendment states that presidential and vice presidential impeachments should not be delayed, adding that the council should make a decision on impeachment cases within six months.
Article 76 states that should the grand justices approve impeachment, the impeached person should be immediately removed from office.
The committee approved the draft act on the condition that would be subject to a public hearing.
Meanwhile, Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Lin Chin-fang (林錦芳) said during a legislative session that the grand justices held three meetings per week.
Every application and even the reason for the application must be voted on, Lin said, adding that such a process naturally takes a long time.
However, Lin said that the Judicial Yuan was also pushing for an amendment to expand the size of the law from four chapters and 35 articles, to nine chapters and 109 articles.
In response to the call from DPP legislators to introduce Germany’s system of constitutional complaint, Lin said that judgments made by the German Federal Constitutional Court were the equivalent of a fourth hearing of the same case.
There is a high volume of requests, but very low success rate, Lin said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
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
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
RSS