Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucus whip Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) have been stealing the limelight in the new legislature. The former graduated from Cornell University in the US, and the latter from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. Both are holders of doctorates of law.
Taiwanese worship academic credentials. Anyone with a doctorate is like a god. Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) also has a doctorate in law, from Harvard University. However, that did not stop him from making the absurd mistake of thinking that lurong (鹿茸, a young deer’s budding antlers) refers to the “hair in a deer’s ears.” It sometimes beggars belief how incredibly ignorant these doctors of law can be.
Huang and Weng are touted as respective specialists in constitutional and administrative law. However, they were struck dumb in the Constitutional Court when Justice Yu Po-hsiang (尤伯祥) asked them to provide a clear definition for legal purposes of what they meant by “counterquestioning” in the KMT-TPP-led controversial legislative reform bill.
Yu even gave Huang three days to prepare a written plea that was to include a clear definition of the term. This left me wondering how much doctors of law from prestigious universities actually know about law.
The pair — leaders of “legislative reform” and advocates of “counterquestioning” — have been building a mechanism for punishing officials who defy procedures, but when questioned, were at a loss for words.
Moreover, a bunch of lawmakers like Weng think it is unfair that in defending the legislative reform bill before the Constitutional Court, they have to face a battery of lawyers representing the Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan, the Control Yuan and the Democratic Progressive Party legislative caucus, saying they were outnumbered one to four. Again, what an absurdity. What really counts is whether the legislative reform bill is constitutional. It is a yes-no question, and this yes or no is to be objectively determined by justices, not by majority vote.
If a school were to implement its own school lunch program, surely, it can be decided by majority vote. Is the Earth flat? Is one a prime number? Were there 29 days in February this year? Are we supposed to believe that such questions are best answered by majority decision? Of course not; they are based on objective truth.
In the Constitutional Court, one does not have an upper hand because one has more lawyers than the other side. Whether it is right and reasonable is what determines who wins the lawsuit. It has nothing to do with the number of attorneys present. The more, the higher winning percentage? What kind of doctor of law in the world would offer such an interesting insight like this?
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired associate professor of National Hsinchu University of Education.
Translated by Chen Chi-huang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of