Understanding Taiwan’s Legislative Reforms
The Taiwan Constitutional Court scheduled oral arguments on the legislature’s controversial reforms for August 3. What’s really at stake here for Taiwan’s public?
On this episode of Zoom In Zoom Out, TaiwanPlus reporter Tiffany Wong sits down with Dr. Yen-tu Su, a research professor at Academia Sinica. We first zoom in on the content on the reform bills, then zoom out to understand why they were so hotly debated in Taiwan.
On this episode of Zoom In Zoom Out, TaiwanPlus reporter Tiffany Wong sits down with Dr. Yen-tu Su, a research professor at Academia Sinica. We first zoom in on the content on the reform bills, then zoom out to understand why they were so hotly debated in Taiwan.
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00:00Welcome to Zoom In Zoom Out, your global look at news from Taiwan.
00:16I'm Tiffany Wong.
00:18Massive crowds took to the streets of Taipei in May to protest a series of bills that would
00:23expand the legislature's powers.
00:25While the so-called Blue Bird movement has since subsided, the bills were eventually
00:29passed and the controversies continued.
00:32Taiwan is now waiting for a ruling from its highest court to decide whether these bills
00:35should be rejected.
00:37To discuss Taiwan's new legislative powers, we're joined today by Dr. Yantu Su, a research
00:42professor at Academia Sinica, who focuses on the law of democracy.
00:46Dr. Su, welcome to the show.
00:48Thank you for having me.
00:50Let's first zoom in.
00:51What exactly are these controversial bills?
00:54The reform bills have three major components.
00:57One on enhancing the legislative oversight over president.
01:02So the president would have to go to the legislative unit to present a state of the nation address
01:08annually and occasionally.
01:10The second one would be the enhancement of the confirmation process.
01:15And the third one would be the enhancement of the investigative power of the legislative
01:21so that any acts deemed as contempt of parliament would have certain legal consequences.
01:28The reform bill would run through the legislative unit by the legislative majority controlled
01:33by the Kuomintang and the TPP, Taiwan People's Party, and over the serious objection of the
01:40TPP and as well as the civil society.
01:44So that's why you mentioned the mass protest in front of the legislative unit during late
01:50May.
01:51And then the president, the executive unit, the control unit, and one-fourth of the legislature,
02:01mainly the TPP caucus, petitioned the constitutional court to intervene.
02:08That's why on July 19th, the constitutional court issued a temporary injunction suspending
02:17the enforcement of certain provisions in this recent legislative amendment.
02:24So one of the ways that these new legislative oversight powers might be used is to have
02:29the legislature summon the president for what's known as a state of the union in the U.S.,
02:34but is called a state of the nation here in Taiwan.
02:37How exactly would that play out?
02:39Let me put it this way.
02:42The state of the nation address is already a constitutional institution in Taiwan.
02:51It's just never been used.
02:53And so this time they want to regularize this mechanism so that the president will submit
03:01his or her state of the nation address annually and occasionally when major things happen,
03:08or his or her administration want to implement certain major policy change.
03:13And so that part, the constitutional court actually gave a green light, and they did
03:20not suspend that part of revision.
03:24Now it is in the constitutional court, is it significant that it's there?
03:29And is there a likelihood that it could be overturned?
03:32So Taiwan is a liberal constitutional democracy with what we call strong form judicial review.
03:39So we have a constitutional court similar to German constitutional court, or many constitutional
03:46court in many liberal democracies.
03:49That court would have the power to invalidate a law, a statute, if it is deemed unconstitutional.
03:59And so it's a little bit different from the U.S. Supreme Court, because only in Taiwan
04:05only the constitutional court has that power to invalidate statutes.
04:10And also this time the court is going to exercise what we call abstract constitutional review.
04:16That means without a concrete case or controversy, the court can directly look into the constitutionality
04:24of this, the disputed legislation, and it could hold the disputed law constitutional
04:31or not, and whether unconstitutional law would have what kind of effect in the future.
04:38In Taiwan's constitutional court, do the judges have a bias or anything like that?
04:44The justices of the Taiwan constitutional court are the only judges in Taiwan that are
04:51politically appointed.
04:53So the justices were appointed by the president subject to the confirmation by the legislative
05:01UN.
05:02So it's quite similar to the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. judges.
05:07However, whereas the judges in the United States, federal judges in the United States,
05:12they have life tenure, here in Taiwan they only serve an eight-year non-consecutive term.
05:19But theoretically, they are expected to act independently and adjudicate the dispute impartially.
05:27You just said that all of the justices are politically appointed.
05:30So could you tell us more about the makeup of the current constitutional court?
05:33Right.
05:34So the Taiwan constitutional court has 15 justices.
05:39And as of now, all the 15 justices were appointed by President Tsai Ing-wen in the last eight years.
05:48And the interesting part is that seven of them will actually leave the court by the
05:54end of October because their term will be expired at that time.
06:01And so in addition to this run, this series of constitutional showdown on parliamentary
06:09reform, we're also going to, we are already expecting actually a confirmation battle in
06:17maybe September and October.
06:24So now we've set the scene.
06:26Let's zoom out to the nationwide reaction to this.
06:28Why was it also controversial?
06:31Actually, two reasons.
06:33First is on the procedural grounds, the way the bills were ran through, forced through
06:38the legislature.
06:41Many people chanting, no discussion, no democracy in front of the legislature.
06:48Because during the legislative process, there was essentially no meaning for deliberation
06:56in the committee review process, no meaning for public consultation.
07:02So that's the first reason.
07:03And the second reason would be a more substantive one.
07:08It's concerns about the content of the legislation.
07:13And so on the one hand, people in general support the reform of our parliament.
07:20On the other hand, people do worry about that this power could be abused or weaponized
07:27for partisan use.
07:29It could come in a downward spiral of scandal-mongering, conspiracy-mongering, even gotcha politics.
07:37And people worry that it's not that good in Taiwan.
07:41If implemented, how would this be different from other legislative powers around the world?
07:46You mentioned that the legislature might be able to summon the president for a state of
07:50the union.
07:51Is that uncommon in other places?
07:54It's actually not that uncommon.
07:57So in the United States, the US Constitution Article 2 actually stipulates that the president
08:05should give a state of the union report to the Congress.
08:10But in Taiwan, we have different constitutional arrangements.
08:14So whether president had that kind of constitutional duty or not is in question, is under dispute.
08:22So what is the relationship between the president and the legislative UN in Taiwan?
08:27That's a very interesting question and very important one.
08:31Because what we have in Taiwan is a so-called semi-presidential system.
08:37It's somewhat different from the presidential system in the United States.
08:41But in reality, Taiwan is essentially a presidential democracy.
08:47So the president are not responsible to the legislative UN directly.
08:52We do have a premier, which is supposed to be accountable to the legislative UN.
09:01So the main controversy over the state of the nation address is whether the president
09:06should be questioned right after his or her address by the members of the legislature
09:15in the form of parliamentary interpolation.
09:19Because for some, that would suggest that the president is responsible to the legislator,
09:26which is a little bit different from the semi-presidential system regime we have in Taiwan.
09:33So people, they have some worries in that regard.
09:39And while others suggest that, well, if the president simply gave his or her address and
09:47would just leave, then why bother?
09:50Because we just don't want to give president that kind of platform to address the nation.
09:57So that's also part of the reason why there are so many disagreements.
10:03So you said the controversial part of that state of the union address is the questioning.
10:08And that might go against the current semi-presidential system that Taiwan has.
10:13So is that a threat to Taiwan's democracy?
10:17Well, this time, during the temporary injunction stage, at the preparatory hearing for the
10:27temporary injunction, there is a question whether the implementation of this law would
10:35cause some irreparable harm to our constitutional order.
10:40Because you need to have that kind of irreparable harm to justify the temporary injunction suspending
10:48the enforcement of the law.
10:51Even though the constitutional court thinks there is, some commentators were questioning
10:57whether the court gave sufficient reason to justify that finding.
11:03And so some people would still disagree whether that would cause some irreparable harm.
11:09But from constitutional court's perspective, the ongoing political struggle, partisan fight
11:17on this issue would already make some damages to Taiwan's constitutional politics.
11:23So to prevent that kind of bickering, constitutional disputes, the court think maybe we should
11:30simply suspend the enforcement of the law.
11:34And regarding the parliamentary questioning, it's also a very typical form of political
11:42accountability mechanism in parliamentary systems.
11:46But this time, they try to make the parliamentary questioning a more effective tool.
11:53So that, for example, counter-questioning or other acts deemed as contempt of the legislator
12:02will come with legal sanction, will come with legal consequences.
12:06So that the legislative union could levy an administrative pecuniary fine.
12:13So that would also raise serious constitutional concerns, whether you can transform the questioning
12:20system into this kind of powerful tool.
12:25So now what happens next for these legislative bills in the constitutional court?
12:30Essentially, if the court invalidate certain provisions, then these provisions will be
12:38strike down, will be strike out of the law books.
12:42They were no longer considered valid laws.
12:45And so if you still want to have a more potent, a more powerful investigative tools, you have
12:53to go back to the draw books and to redesign the system and make sure that it's constitutional.
13:00Otherwise, it will still be held unconstitutional by the court again.
13:04The DPP administration will also have the chance to present the reform proposals.
13:14And we will see whether they can reach some kind of political compromise in this regard,
13:20so that Taiwan can move on to the next stage.
13:24But that's the best scenario.
13:27Worst scenario is that we get to see the escalation of political confrontation.
13:32We're going to have confirmation battle, confirmation battle and other confrontations
13:38later on.
13:39And it will make the divided government in the next four years very miserable for many
13:46people.
13:47Thank you so much for your insights and thank you for joining us today.
13:52This has been Zoom In Zoom Out.
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