Like Michael Turton, I found this essay to be particularly comprehensive, outlining KMT plans to keep local officials in charge after the county mergers (largely KMT or KMT-friendly independents). The KMT claims there is precedent for this move and so it is certainly constitutional and legal.

Well, the KMT already passed the bill this afternoon, though the DPP put up a fight.

So if the DPP intends to press this bill's constitutionality or legality, they'd better get the case before a judge in a hurry. Time is a-wastin'!

Yunlin special election

Both parties are now going through the process of picking a candidate; the DPP will likely go with Liu Chian-kuo (劉建國), the candidate during the regular election, assuming his poll numbers look good. The KMT will pick a candidate by month's end, and announce a time table for picking the Taoyuan and Pingtung county commissioner candidates tomorrow.

Unicode

I guess KMT legislature Wu Yu-Sheng (吳育昇) never heard of it. Other than that, reasonably interesting discussion.

Round up

Three things this afternoon: First is the previously announced DPP intention to hold a referendum on the ECFA, with the first stage of signature collection to be finished by the end of July. I have been waiting for the exact wording of the referendum proposal, but even the DPP newsletter doesn't contain that information, so I can forget about finding it in the media reports. I don't think they've actually decided on the wording, which means they can't get the petition drive started yet. Brilliant.

Next, the widely despised NCC finally announced that Wantwant group cannot take over CTV and China Times as it had planned. Wantwant is not happy and will fight this. Perhaps finally, now that the NCC has angered blue politicians, the organization will be banished or significantly reformed, years after the Constitutional Court here declared the current method for choosing that body to be unconstitutional.

However, the more likely result will be mild reform that leaves the NCC responsibilities and rights more or less intact, while just changing how members are chosen. More on this topic to come, as English media has not picked it up yet.

Third, the DPP has raised a bill that would prevent Chinese government or military officials from investing in Taiwan, and lock all Chinese investors out of certain industries. The bill will be discussed during Friday's legislative session.

Latest Parade & Assembly Law developments

One of Taiwan's most controversial and misunderstood laws is the Assembly and Parade Law (集會遊行法) [full text at link]. Debate over how to revise the law has been an active topic for years, and this year will be no exception. Taiwan News reports (if you don't read the rest of this long post, this report is really the more important part):

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party occupied the dais at the Legislative Yuan in a protest against proposed government amendments to the Assembly and Parade Act Friday....

The DPP said the changes didn't go far enough, and amounted to a throwback to the martial law era which ended in 1987. Carrying banners reading "Police State," a group of DPP lawmakers mounted the speaker's dais and prevented further hearings from taking place Friday morning....

The KMT version of the amendments would require the approval of a protest march from each shop, apartment building or office building on the route, DPP chief whip Ker Chien-ming told reporters. Even after the protest organizers had reported their plans to the authorities, police could still order them to change the route, downsize the protest location and change the time, Ker said.

DPP lawmaker Kuan Bi-ling said the KMT wanted to force through the law Friday so it could be used against an anti-government labor protest on May 1 and a DPP march against President Ma Ying-jeou's policies planned for May 17.

Because the protest prevented the Legislative Yuan from passing scheduled tax changes leading to a price cut for rice wine, a common ingredient of local food, the two parties also accused each other of holding up legislation beneficial to the public at large.
If the KMT really cared about the price of rice wine, then it would have used its majority to schedule the passage of the tax cut ahead of the Assembly and Parade Act, Kuan said.

Another crappy provision of the proposed law is the ability to issue repeated large fines for a number of different technicalities, which coudl all happen for what is basically a signle parade incident.

It's always best to do a quick historic overview of the law's creation and application. The very beginning?

The act was first adopted in 1988 after martial law was lifted in 1987, its intended goal being to avoid social upheaval in the post-Martial Law era, while also protecting the public's right to hold rallies.

The act has long been criticized by activists as legislation that restricts freedom of expression rather than protecting it. It requires organizers of demonstrations to apply for an assembly and parade permit before a demonstration takes place, grants the police the power to disband a demonstration if they find it necessary and forbids any demonstrations in certain areas surrounding government buildings and foreign diplomatic missions.

The DPP made revision of the law a primary goal during it's time in executive power,^[1] but was unable to push through any serious revision. But nothing much really happened. Instead, the debate largely lay dormant until 2006, during the "Red Shirt" siege of the presidential palace led by former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh. Shih's final siege, in which the crowd refused to disperse even long after the protest had officially ended, finally got him charged with violating the law (though nothing else in the month long protest got him in trouble). Thankfully, Shih and the 15 other defendants were ultimately vindicated in February of this year:

Prosecutors said that the anti-Chen campaign organizers had not applied for a permit from the Taipei City Police Department to hold a parade or rally, as required by the Assembly and Parade Act.

The Taipei District Court yesterday said in a ruling that although the police had put up warning signs and broadcast requests to the organizers for the crowd to disperse, it was unlikely that so many thousands of protesters could respond to the requests, and therefore under the “principle of proportionality” it could not prove that the organizers violated the Assembly and Parade Act.

The ruling also said that evidence failed to prove that the 16 defendants were in charge of the massive protest.

It said that because the government and the legislature had proposed amendments to the Assembly and Parade Act that would abolish the requirement that protest organizers apply for permits from the police, the act remained in question.

But Shih's camp were not the only ones protesting the law at that time, just the ones with the largest media megaphone:

The [Taiwan Association for Human Rights] and 20 other civic groups recently formed an alliance to push for an amendment to what they called a "bad" law.

Huang Te-pei (黃德北), a professor in the department of social development at Shih Hsin University, said that "police discretion" should be described more specifically in the law as this has largely been abused by the police in recent years.

"Last May, our labor union was protesting in front of the headquarters of Chunghwa Telecom. It was a legal action, but the police tried to disperse us," said Simon Chang (張緒中), president of Chunghwa Telecom's Workers' Union.

Or consider this protest, also from 2006:

On May 13, Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) plodded through a crowd of livid students. The front doors of the Ministry of Education were barely visible behind a shifting flank of riot police and an iron gate. Yang stuck his foot in the gate's grill, intending to climb over the barrier. That's when police yanked him down and arrested him in front of an army of TV cameras.

"I've participated in many raucous protests -- in the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party] era, no less -- but that was the first time I had such a run-in with the cops," Yang said.

During and after Shih's protests, may KMT & DPP legislators alike called for amending the law to relax the standards and give the police more power. The PFP also got into the act:

Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀), director of the PFP's policy research center, told reporters that Article 14 of the Constitution stipulates that "The people shall have freedom of assembly and association."

However, the Assembly and Parade Law requires organizers of an assembly or parade to apply for permits in advance to the local police chief, who may find it difficult to resist political pressure from higher authorities to deny the application, Chang said.

President Chen himself risked arrest in a "U.N. for Taiwan" torch rally in late 2007, during the run up to the legislative election, because the city and national governments couldn't agree whether the parade required a permit or not (Taipei City was probably inclined to deny it, and the central government insisted it was not a political event anyway).

After Chen Yun Lin's visit to Taiwan and the resulting protests, along with the police suppression of those protests, revision of that law became a central priority of the Wild Strawberry's protest movement in 2008:

The third change we want is that at present violations of the Assembly and Parade Law are criminal acts under the law and determined under criminal law, so you can be sent to jail for a year or two years, for example. We believe that this is against the freedom of the people. We want that changed so that violations fall under the administrative laws and only fines are handed out for violations of the Assembly and Parade Law, so you won't get a year or two for violations of the law. Finally, we want them to lift the restrictions on places where assemblies and parades can be held. These restrictions are a violation of the basic rights and freedoms laid out in the Constitution.

Some called for the outright abolition of the law. Eventually, minor progress was made on trying to relax the law:

Activists have called for a change from a pre-approval system to a pre-notice system, the abolition of the police’s power to disband demonstrations and a cut-down version or the complete abolition of the restricted areas.

Although both Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, as well as the Cabinet, support the pre-notice system, they argued on whether it should be mandatory or voluntary.The Cabinet version of the amendment insists that organizers be required to notify police of a upcoming demonstration, while DPP lawmakers, including Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) and Chen Chieh-ju (陳節如), argued for a voluntary system....

The second dispute came when lawmakers discussed whether there should
be a “safe distance” around government buildings and foreign diplomatic
missions.

Today's proposed "revisions" of the law, as well as the KMT's intentionally placing a contentious issue in front of the kind of laws that would pass without protest, are good reminders of the KMT's political maneuvering and authoritarian roots. Once champions of true reform of the law, they have decided the current law is much more useful when you're in charge!

Let us hope the law is eventually reformed in a positive way that increases, rather than decreases, the freedom of the people.

Kang Shih-ju wins in Miaoli County-1

Last Saturday, Kang Shih-ju (康世儒) beat Chen Luan-ying (陳鑾英), the wife of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Lee E-tin (李乙廷), in a by-election for the legislative seat of Miaoli County-1.

The victory is especially important for three reasons. First, Miaoli-1 is a KMT stronghold, and the signal being sent from the voters there is it actually does matter if the KMT tries to run vote buyers or their family.

Second, Kang will caucus with (but not join) the DPP, which is key because the DPP is exactly one seat short of the 1/4 seats required to raise legislation. Now, the DPP will have a chance to raise their own bill, though they will never get out of committee.

Finally, this win reinforces that legislative elections are all about local factions. Kang was the chief of Zhunan Township (竹南), and it was key to his victory

Kang failed to win the KMT’s nomination for the legislative election last year and left the party after it again passed him over for the by-election, choosing Chen instead....

Chen was leading yesterday before votes in Zhunan Township were counted.

Kang won 19,000 votes to Chen’s 6,200 votes in the township, securing the victory.

><

This Holo Taiwanese-related piece demonstrating increasingly pathetic behavior by my least favorite female KMT legislator (I have four least favorite legislators) is probably of no interest to most readers, but I find it infuriating that a legislator who knows jack shit about the language has taken itself upon her to "teach" Holo to the non-Holo speaking Premier.

Some comments from the TGB:

國民黨的刪除台語認證專家, 用咱設計"Guan-tau kong Tai-gi"的貼紙作教材, theh khi ka Lau
tiau-hian Tai-gi.....有夠天才.

M tsai-iann kian-siau e tua-bin-sin (moo-sin-a).Gua-bin the i ang.

Âng-á-siù-thiāu ká án-ne kóng, Āu-pái góa beh iōng chôan-lô tō u lí-iû--ah,
Hah, tán chiok-kú--ah.

Invasion of privacy

Since Weichen has again already done such a bang up job writing on this topic, I'll translate his post instead of rewriting it. I don't draw the same final conclusion as Weichen does -- I believe the invasions of privacy would be used for much more private retribution -- but the law is ultimately as dangerous as he suggests.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is by nature an authoritarian party, and so now that they have returned to power, they are doing everything they can to again make Taiwan an authoritarian state. Now, the Ministry of Justice and KMT legislators are in cahoots to pass a new "Personal Information Protection Law" which would allow public representatives [like legislators] to look up people's personally information without any cause. Every person's personal and private information would be laid bare to the KMT.

All netizens should note, actually the target of this law is pan-green netizens. Why have the KMT's netizens secretly established their base at the Legislative Yuan's Cingdao House? Is it just a coincidence that the office of the legislator who raised this bill is also in the Cingdao House?

In the future, the KMT's website will not just be used to disseminate propaganda, but will be used to bring to Taiwan that Chinese habit of [human flesh searches.] If the law is amended, legislative authority can also be consolidated and the personal information of pan-green supporters can be used to purge opponents, or perhaps given to the Chinese PLA. Any supporters of Taiwanese independence, of the DPP, or any anti-Chinese person can be listed in preparation for a massacre or crucification.

The significance of this law cannot be underestimated.

T-SPAN update

As always, Maddog is on the case, spotting the Taipei Times article here. Looks like T-SPAN isn't as transparent as anyone expected:

BEHIND THE SCENE: While people can now see online what is going on inside the legislature, grittier action, from shouting matches to melees, is being censored

[...]

The system allows people to watch legislative meetings live online or to access videoclips permanently stored in the system on-demand.

However, it soon came under fire: The system is designed to avoid broadcasting scenes whenever meetings degenerate into a melee.

FULL PICTURE

Some fear, however, that selective broadcasts could limit people’s understanding of what is going on.

For example, when Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers criticized Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) on the legislative floor on Friday and demanded that he apologize for the economic situation, the VOD system showed a wall of the chamber and the sound was muted.
- - -

228 madness

Ma pledges to seek consensus on major ethnic issues

The [228 Memorial] foundation was critical of the Ma administration after the legislature, dominated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), froze its budget last year and then refused to grant a budget for this year.

Ma, who has been seeking support from 228 Incident victims since serving as Taipei mayor, said the government would make up for the previous budget cuts by providing an annual budget starting next year and vowed to continue funding the foundation until the government had paid the NT$1.5 billion the foundation had been promised by the previous administration.

Wang said the president also asked the Executive Yuan to apply to the legislature to unfreeze the 2007 budget for the foundation.

Wow, taking the tough line in this issue I see.

T-SPAN

Tim Maddog, one of the editors at Taiwan Matters and always a fast draw, emailed me about today's Taipei Times piece about the Taiwanese legislature's grudging willingness to start broadcasting itself online in a T-SPAN sort of way:

The Legislative Yuan will become more transparent as it allows the public to access its video-on-demand (VOD) system for the first time and watch open-door legislative meetings from outside the legislature starting today.

An official at the legislature’s Information Technology Department told the Taipei Times that people would be able to watch live broadcasts as the eight standing committees hold meetings, as well as plenary sessions, at ivod.ly.gov.tw without having to register personal information.

Woo hoo! Committee meetings, where all the real stuff happens (well during the half day the lazy committees actually meet). But as my grandpa always said, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

However, meetings of the pan-blue-dominated Procedure Committee would not be available as the legislature does not currently record those meetings, the official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that anyone interested in watching the videos should use Internet Explorer because of compatibility issues.

Only around 800 people will be able to use the Web site simultaneously because its bandwidth remains limited, he said.

The first point is troublesome for the obvious reason that the Procedure Committee literally sets the agenda for all legislation; it is there that legislation is bottled up or put on the agenda. It is literally the most important committee to watch.

The IE situation is not surprising given Taiwan's addiction to Microsoft; but those Firefox users among us are welcome to check out IETab, a plug-in that will allow you to watch those legislative sessions from the comfort of your Firefox browsing window.

As Maddog points out to me, 800 people is a pretty pathetic bandwidth limit that for all intents and purposes would allow one group's supporters to block access if they wanted.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Daniel Hwang (黃義交), a member of the task force, said they would negotiate with the National Communications Commission next in a bid to establish a channel similar to C-SPAN.

The legislative watchdog Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) lauded the changes.

As do I sir, as do I!

Legislative wranglings

As the Legislative Yuan finally gets around to passing the budget, another set of resolutions was mentioned in a Liberty Times article today. (CNA article here.)

The first is a DPP resolution that reads as follows and was passed on Tuesday by the KMT-controlled legislature:

「中華民國（台灣）為主權獨立國家，與中華人民共和國分離而治，互不隸屬。我國政府各級公職人員於兩國協商或任何兩國人士官方、非官方場合會面，均應以『正式官銜』參與，不應自我矮化，損害我國國格」。

The Republic of China (Taiwan) is a sovereign and independent country, governed separately from the People's Republic of China, and neither [the PRC or ROC] has jurisdiction over the other. During country-to-country negotiations and meetings between officials of the two countries at both official and unofficial forums, representatives from all levels of our government should without exception participate in their capacity as formal government representatives, and should neither lower our status nor damage our national dignity.

Seems like a pretty good resolution. It had bipartisan support, defines cross-strait relations as country-to-country, and calls for real officials to be involved in all negotations.

Last night, a similar KMT measure passed. The content is as follows:

「我國政府各級公職人員於兩岸協商，或任何兩岸人士於官方或非官方場合會面，均應以對等、尊重方式參與，如對方以正式官銜出席，我方亦應以正式官銜出席，不應自我矮化、損害我國國格」。

During cross-strait negotiations and meetings at official and unofficial forums, our government officials from all levels of government should without exception participate on equal footing and in a respectful manner. If the other side official representatives, our side ought also to send official representatives, and should neither lower our status nor damage our national dignity.

This resolution basically gives the administration room to send unofficial representatives when China does the same, which seems practical enough to me and is likely intended to leave an opening for party-to-party negotiations and unofficial meetings.

The resolutions are not in contradiction and, if I'm not mistaken, carry the power of law. So does this mean that we now have a law on the books that says ROC = Taiwan and that the PRC and ROC both exist as separate, equal entities which are not subordinate to each other? I think so. Correct me if I'm wrong. Update: Maddog corrects this by pointing out the resolutions do not have the force of law.

And in Ma's reading of the constitution, is the DPP resolution unconstitutional?

Green camp surrounds legislature

Despite Diane Lee's resignation, a number of green-leaning civic organizations and DPP organizers are peacefully laying siege to the legislature today in a protest to express their disapproval of the legislature's slow handling of the situation, to call for Diane Lee to be formally stripped of her position by the legislature, and to call on other suspected duel-nationality blue legislators to resign.

I think the DPP isn't helping itself with this protest; I don't see what is being called for anymore now that Diane's resignation deflated this issue. On the other hand, she probably wouldn't have resigned without the pressure the protest planning was bringing to bear.

Diane Lee resigns

Bam. Now comes the court process.

You know the KMT is expressing true remorse when...

You know the KMT is expressing true remorse when:


KMT taps wife of unseated legislator to run in Miaoli (Taipei Times)

Then there's: Year-end party gifts ‘unethical’: DPP (Taipei Times)

The DPP legislative caucus recently singled out Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) for asking state-owned businesses to provide gifts for draws at their year-end gatherings, while KMT Legislator Lin Tsang-min (林滄敏) twice last year asked state-run companies to provide presents and souvenirs for participants for activities he organized in October and last month.

A senior legislative office aide who spoke on condition of anonymity said that the practice has been in place for a long time and that it was normal for lawmakers across party lines to ask for sponsoring from government institutions and state-run businesses....

Lin said all the gifts he asked for were given to charity and volunteer groups for their banquets, not to his own.

“I don’t know what this controversy is all about,” he said.

I'm not sure how consistent the DPP legislators' position is on this; for example, have they asked for year end gifts in the past 8 years? I believe so, at least according to the legislative aide above.

This is an example of the DPP's lack of direction and consistency, as well as their tendency to focus on the most trivial of news tidbits just so they have something to do in their daily caucus press conference.

Non-punishment punishments

Diana Lee has left the KMT, though what this will mean practically is hard to say.

She'll likely retain her seat; pressure for an investigation will grow until prosecutors check out her citizenship status; she'll leave the office only if she's forced to, and the same goes for returning the years of salary she may well have illegally been collecting.

I can envision an inconclusive investigation and Diana rejoining the party before the next election.

KMT legislator Diana Lee: My US property proves nothing about my citizenship

Technically true, but hardly convincing.

Note: Taiwan Echo mentions in the comments that Diana is answering a non-issue:

DPP provides evidence that Diane Lee filed INCOME TAX this year, that's why she is illegible to receive the Economic Stimulus Payment (ESP).

Diane Lee replied with: "I filed for US PROPERTY TAX doesn't mean that I have US Citizenship."

huh ??

US IRS website clearly shows that only INCOME TAX counts for the ESP return.

Legislature completes check of lawmakers' US citizenship

And will hand the results out to each legislator as classified documents. Obviously, whether any legislators have broken the law on this front should not be made public. Sensitive information and all that.

KMT will strip Chen of courteous treatment upon first guilty verdict

Assuming there is a guilty verdict, of course. I'll wait to see the draft law before saying which privileges would be stripped (they would likely include the allowances and possibly the security detail).

Proposed amendments to the Election and Recall Law (公職人員選舉罷免法) are being put on hold for now. If passed would turn vote buying into a much more palatable experience for legislators, since they could drag out cases and appeals for much longer before being stripped of their seats. Guess the KMT is waiting for a better internal consensus (or a time when nobody is paying attention).

Premier: we need direct communications channel with DPP

What a revelation. So, will the DPP take some initiative, exhibit maturity and establish such a channel? Or will they continue the long tradition of stonewalling that so defines legislative politics in Taiwan?