Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have proposed abolishing the Control Yuan and the Examination Yuan — two of the nation’s five branches of government.
The Control Yuan is the nation’s highest ombudsman, while the Examination Yuan is in charge of national exams for civil servants.
The motion, led by DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃), has been signed by 30 DPP lawmakers.
Photo courtesy of the Examination Yuan
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) and Taiwan People’s Party caucus whip Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) have vowed to launch efforts to abolish the Control Yuan, as part of a constitutional reform process, Chen said on Thursday last week.
“We agree with this effort, and have proposed abolishing the Control Yuan and the Examination Yuan, getting ahead of the KMT on this work,” she said. “We now ask Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) to relaunch the constitutional reform committee in the Legislative Yuan, to undertake this work.”
The DPP and many of its supporters have long backed the idea of Taiwan becoming a “normal” country, in line with most democratic nations, which separate power between three bodies: the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, Chen said.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
“However, the KMT and TPP are only focused on the Control Yuan, which would result in a weird ... political framework,” she said.
Chen said that for many years, she and other DPP legislators have asked for constitutional reform to abolish the Control Yuan and the Examination Yuan, which would help resolve the problem of unclarified and overlapping power between the five branches.
The Examination Yuan’s responsibilities of administering examinations for government agencies and overseeing the civil servant system should fall under the Executive Yuan, while its supervision role could fall under the Legislative Yuan, she said.
Separately, at a news conference in Taipei, KMT Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) suggested steps that could be taken “to truly do away with the Control Yuan.”
The legislature should reject nomination of the Control Yuan members, he said, adding the issue should also be put to a referendum, held alongside the local elections in 2026 or presidential and legislative election in 2028.
There should also be public discussions on ways to approach the issues, he added.
Additional reporting by Lin Hsin-han
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