Contempt of legislature and giving false testimony during a legislative inquiry should be punishable offenses, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said on Monday.
Following a party meeting, KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) said that the public wants reform to allow greater legislative oversight of the government.
The party’s proposed measures would make the legislative speaker and deputy speaker election an open ballot, normalize presidential reports to the legislature, give the legislature more of a say on personnel appointments at critical government agencies and bolster the legislature’s powers of inquiry.
Photo: CNA
The KMT said that the Criminal Code and the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法) should be amended to mandate that answers provided by those being questioned in the legislature be focused and to the point.
Those being questioned must provide a response or information as long as it would not harm national security or confidentiality, it said.
False statements and other actions would be deemed to be contempt of the Legislative Yuan, the proposed amendments say.
The speaker or a legislator asking the questions would have the option to request that punishment be applied in cases of contempt, with the votes or signatures of at least one-fifth of the attending lawmakers required to approve action, the proposed changes say.
The fines would be NT$20,000 to NT$100,000 and failure to retract or correct falsehoods could accrue subsequent fines, they say.
Extreme cases could be referred to the courts, with those found guilty facing up to three years in prison and a maximum fine of NT$300,000, they say.
The president should present a “state of the nation” report to the legislature on Feb. 1 every year and attend a Legislative Yuan session on March 1, the KMT said.
New presidents should deliver a report within two weeks of their inauguration and appear before the Legislative Yuan within a month, it said.
Legislators would be able to ask the president questions about the report and the president should respond immediately, the proposed amendments say.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) told reporters that legislative reforms should give power in accordance to the body’s responsibilities.
Reforms should not expand legislative power, as the public would not stand for it, Wu said.
The KMT’s proposals are an attempted power grab, she said, adding that based on the party’s performance in the legislature, it is hard to tell whether government officials should hold legislators in contempt or vice versa.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
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
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS