Ruey-Beei Wu (吳瑞北), a National Taiwan University (NTU) electrical engineering professor and a candidate for university presidential, yesterday filed an administrative litigation against the Ministry of Education and the school, asking that the university redo its presidential election from the beginning instead of from the final round of voting.
As a candidate, he would be able ask the court to speed up the judicial process and help resolve the controversy more effectively, he wrote on Facebook.
The university’s presidential election in January became embroiled in controversies after NTU finance professor Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) was elected president and then accused of failing to disclose a conflict of interest.
Photo: Lin Hsiao-yun, Taipei Times
Kuan was an independent director and a member of the salary and auditing committees of Taiwan Mobile, while company vice chairman Richard Tsai (蔡明興) was a member of the election committee.
In May, the ministry ordered the university to repeat the election due to the conflict of interest, but the school refused and instead filed an administrative appeal requesting that Kuan be appointed as president based on the election.
On Monday last week, the ministry asked NTU to repeat the final round of voting with the same five candidates — Kuan, Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences director Chou Mei-yin (周美吟), physics professor Chang Ching-ray (張慶瑞), Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia professor Chen Ming-hsien (陳銘憲) and history professor Chen Jo-shui (陳弱水).
The ministry’s request was “not only illegal, but also illogical,” Wu wrote on Facebook, adding that student groups and the presidential election committee were unhappy with it.
“The university should repeat the election from the initial qualification review of all eight candidates, including Kuan and myself. The three rounds of voting conducted by the university council and presidential election committee following the review should, of course, be redone as well,” Wu said.
While the school had the right to file an administrative appeal, it cannot defy the ministry’s order to launch a re-election, he said.
By turning to the legal system, he hopes to bring a peaceful end to the controversy, which has caused “NTU’s reputation to hit rock bottom,” Wu added.
The other two candidates in the initial round were former Academia Sinica vice president Wang Fan-sen (陳汎森) and National Tsing Hua University vice president Wu Cheng-wen (吳誠文).
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant