The Constitutional Court yesterday announced the procedures for the morning and afternoon sessions on Aug. 6 to hear oral arguments from lawyers and representatives of political parties on a constitutional interpretation regarding executive oversight amendments, following the granting of a temporary injunction on Friday last week against the amendments.
The Constitutional Court justices would preside over the two hearing sessions on the legislation amendments introduced and passed by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers, and opposed by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The Constitutional Court has scheduled Aug. 5 to hear from the KMT and TPP on requiring the president to give a state of the nation address at the legislature and answer questions from legislators, and the rights of lawmakers for confirmation hearings, reject key appointments to government ministries and make changes to the legislative process.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The afternoon session would hear on amendments to expand lawmakers’ investigative powers to hold legislative hearings into cases under investigation, and changes to the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法) and the Criminal Code that would make “contempt of the legislature” a punishable crime.
In the court’s notification, the Aug. 6 sessions would start at 9am, and would finish at 5pm.
Meanwhile, the Judicial Yuan in a release yesterday said that people who threaten or incite violence against the personal safety of grand justices would be prosecuted.
The Judicial Yuan said that a police investigation is ongoing after reports of people posting messages on social media platforms threatening the grand justices.
“People who threaten the personal safety and property of grand justices have exceeded the bounds of freedom of expression. In a free and democratic society with the rule of law, such offenses cannot be tolerated, and therefore an investigation has been initiated to collect evidence and other legal procedures for prosecution,” the release said.
“We urge the public to condemn such action of contravening the law, which also endangers the nation’s democratic Constitutional framework,” it added.
“The grand justices are bound by their official duty to take on the work for constitutional interpretation, in acting as the last line of defense to uphold the Constitution. By law, the grand justices have judicial independence to make rulings, without interference, and they are also obliged to hear from all sectors of the society and to accept criticism,” it said.
“However, any deliberate actions to defame or vilify the Grand Justices are attacks against our democratic Constitutional framework, which could lead to public confrontation, destabilize the rule of law and result in social disorder,” the release said.
“Therefore we urge the public to conduct discussions with reasons and self-discipline, without resorting to threats of violence,” the release added.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
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