The Executive Yuan yesterday nominated seven members for the National Communications Commission (NCC), a body tasked with regulating the telecom and broadcasting sectors.
The seven candidates, which must be approved by the legislature, were chosen among “a long list” of names, many of whom turned down offers to serve on the commission because of a new “revolving door clause,” Cabinet spokeswoman Vanessa Shih (史亞平) said yesterday.
The clause added to the NCC’s Organic Law (國家通訊傳播組織法) last year bars NCC members from serving as executives of enterprises related to the NCC’s duties within three years of leaving the commission.
In July 2006 the Council of Grand Justices found the law unconstitutional in part because it stipulates that NCC members should be nominated by political parties in proportion to their number of seats in the legislature.
Some of the NCC members stepped down after the ruling, while others stayed on to complete their three-year term, which ended in January.
At that point the Democratic Progressive Party government decided to postpone the nomination of new members until after the presidential inauguration in May.
Candidate Hsieh Chih-nan (謝進男), formerly a member of the pan-green Taiwan Solidarity Union, was the only incumbent NCC member to be renominated.
Shih declined to comment on why the other four NCC members — chairman Su Yeong-chin (蘇永欽), Howard Shyr (石世豪), Liu Tsung-de (劉宗德) and Lee Tsu-yuan (李祖源) — were not renominated.
The other nominees were Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲), an associate professor of law at the Institute of Law for Science and Technology at National Tsing Hua University; Liu Chorng-jian (劉崇堅), a professor of economics at National Taipei University; Chen Cheng-tsang (陳正倉), a professor of economics at National Taiwan University; Lee Ta-sung (李大嵩), a professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering at National Chiao Tung University; Chang Pao-chi (張寶基), a supervisor at the Department of Electrical Engineering at National Central University; and Chung Chi-hui (鍾起惠), director of the Department of Journalism at Shih Hsin University.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
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