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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Legislature passes justice nominees
Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） lawmakers gesture after the legislature confirmed four Council of Grand Justices nominees in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
COST CONCERN: The Alliance for Public Oversight of Grand Justice Nominations said that the review process allowed too little time to question the four nominees
By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
Four nominees for the Council of Grand Justices secured the confirmation of the legislature yesterday, despite criticism from civic groups, who said that the review process was not detailed or lengthy enough.
Out of 112 legislators, 109 cast ballots in the vote on the nominations, including Democratic Progressive Party （DPP） lawmakers, some of whom had threatened to abstain.
The DPP caucus panned the nominations on Tuesday — before the review process began — saying that the choices by President Ma Ying-jeou （馬英九） were his attempt to “seize control of the right to legal interpretation,” which was “a humiliating challenge to the judicial system.”
It said that boycotting the review was an option for the caucus to show its disapproval.
However, all four nominees received the required 56 votes each to be approved.
The Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT）, with 64 seats, has a legislative majority, while the DPP has 40 seats.
National Taiwan University law professor Tsai Ming-cheng （蔡明誠） had 79 votes in favor of his nomination, the highest of the four, with 28 votes against and two invalid votes; lawyer Huang Horng-shya （黃虹霞） garnered 71 votes, with 34 against and four invalid ballots; Deputy Minister of Justice Wu Chen-huan （吳陳鐶） received 65 votes for, with 41 against and three invalid.
Shilin District Court President Lin Jyun-yi （林俊益） was the most controversial nomination of the four, due to his acquittal of then-Taipei mayor Ma in 2007 on corruption charges in connection with the use of a special allowance fund.
Lin received 63 votes, 44 against and two invalid votes.
The Alliance for Public Oversight of Grand Justice Nominations, which is comprised of several civic groups advocating human rights protections and judicial reforms, on Thursday ridiculed the “cost-performance ratio” of the review process, saying that only “285 minutes of legislators’ time was allocated for questioning the four, who were then given eight-year positions as grand justices and salaries of more than NT$30 million [US$960,737] each.”
The groups also accused the candidates of evasiveness and ambivalence toward issues concerning human rights and equality, saying that the four “cite popular opinion when it is convenient, but fail to provide their own arguments on constitutional interpretations.”
Chinese-language media outlets, including Storm Media, reported that the DPP caucus had agreed not to boycott the review process in exchange for an end to KMT support for more Control Yuan member nominations during the remainder of Ma’s term.
If DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文） is elected in next year’s presidential elections, she would be able to nominate 11 Control Yuan members and 11 grand justices in total during her first term, according to the report.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
