The Executive Yuan’s plan to ask the legislature to reconsider amendments passed on May 28 to expand the latter’s powers to oversee the government would mark the 14th time the executive branch has declined to accept bills or resolutions passed by the Legislative Yuan.
The Cabinet on Thursday said that it planned to ask the legislature to reconsider revisions to the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法) and the Criminal Code in the coming days, pending the president’s approval.
The amendments were pushed through by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party lawmakers, who have a majority in the Legislative Yuan, despite the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s objection.
Photo: CNA
Article 3-2 (2) of the Additional Articles of the Constitution stipulates that if the Executive Yuan finds a bill passed by the Legislative Yuan “difficult to execute,” within 10 days of receiving it can, request the legislature reconsider the bill, provided it has the president’s approval.
The legislature is required to vote on whether to uphold the passage of the bill within 15 days of receiving the Cabinet’s request.
It requires the consent of more than half of all sitting legislators, or a minimum of 57 votes in the current legislature, to uphold the bill.
If the legislature fails to reach a decision within this period, the bill would become invalid.
Since the promulgation of the Constitution in 1947, the Executive Yuan has returned 12 bills and one resolution to the Legislative Yuan for reconsideration.
One of the returned bills sought to form a special task force to probe the shooting of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on March 19, 2004, and the resolution was intended to halt the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
Of the Cabinet’s previous attempts to reject the legislature’s measures, six were successful, with the legislature vetoing its previously adopted bills, three failed as lawmakers upheld them.
There was an occasion, in which the Executive Yuan withdrew its request, and another one, in which lawmakers were unable to reach a consensus within a designated period, thus invalidating the measure.
The remaining two requests for legislative reconsideration, proposed in December 1948, were shelved because the then-KMT-led government was losing the civil war against the Chinese Communist Party, which resulted in the bills being marked as “unresolved.”
If a minimum of 57 lawmakers support the amendments, they would be returned to the Cabinet. Then the president would be required to sign them into law, although the government is likely to seek a ruling from the Constitutional Court on the constitutionality of the revisions.
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