Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: KMT/Facebook
THE KMT HAS sought to use similar tactics for Taiwan’s National Communications Commission (NCC), as it has aimed to do with the Constitutional Court. That is, the KMT has tried to freeze the NCC by mandating that the NCC cannot function without a minimum quorum of members then blocking any appointments that the Lai administration seeks to make to the NCC.
The NCC is constituted by a seven-member committee. The terms of four of the seven members ended in July, as a result of which there are only three serving members on the NCC.
When then-chair Chen Yaw-shyang’s term ended, Wong Po-tsung was appointed as acting chair. But legislation passed by the KMT legislative caucus, acting in coordination with its ally, the TPP, would limit the NCC chair to a limit of two terms, with each term being four years.
Previously, the KMT alleged that Wong is not suited to office, hoping to establish grounds for his dismissal. But as Wong already served two terms, that means with the passage of the new legislation, the NCC no longer has a quorum to continue operating, as there are only three members of the NCC. As three members are not enough to take up the tasks of the NCC, the KMT and TPP have also refused to confirm any appointments to the NCC proposed by the Lai administration.
In this sense, the NCC sets a precedent for what the KMT aims to do in the future with the Constitutional Court. Specifically, legislation proposed by KMT legislator Weng Hsiao-ling would freeze the ability of the Constitutional Court to make majority rulings without a full bench of justices. And, as seven of the fifteen justices on the Constitutional Court retired after the end of their terms in October, it is expected that the KMT will seek to block any future proposed appointments by the Lai administration to the Constitutional Court, so as to prevent the Constitutional Court from operating.
This would be a means by which the KMT would try to freeze the judiciary. Namely, the judiciary has been an obstacle to other means by which the KMT has sought to expand its powers using its current slim majority in the legislature. Efforts by the KMT to obtain new investigative powers, stripping away powers that normally belong to the judicial and executive branches of government, were struck down by the Constitutional Court in late October.
So, too, then, with the NCC. In particular, the NCC has been a particular sticking point for the KMT after the Tsai administration declined to renew the broadcasting license of CtiTV, which had been reported in the past by outlets such as the Financial Times and Apple Daily as directly accepting Chinese funding and editorial say from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office. After losing its coveted broadcast position, CtiTV has switched to streaming.
Photo credit: National Communications Commission/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
The KMT, in turn, sought to attack the broadcast approval of Mirror TV, which would have taken up the channels formerly occupied by CtiTV. The KMT alleges that the approval of Mirror TV for broadcast, as the expansion of Mirror Media into television broadcasting, only occurred as a result of political intervention by the DPP.
When the KMT sought to obtain investigative powers through the legislature, the KMT signaled its intent to investigate the approval of Mirror TV by convening an investigative committee over the issue. Yet in this sense, attacking Mirror TV has been a form of political retribution over CtiTV.
It is to be seen whether the KMT’s efforts to freeze the NCC occur in tandem as part of any broader strategy from the political party, then, even as efforts to freeze the Constitutional Court continue. With the KMT having long since adopted scorched earth tactics against the Lai administration, as observed in the means by which it sought legislative powers earlier this year, the KMT may simply mean to freeze all elements of government that it does not control, while expanding the power of the organs of government it does have a foothold in. But the KMT may seek to expand influence over the NCC as well, so as to ensure that information favorable to it is disseminated among the general public.
Indeed, it would prove an interesting move if the KMT next moves to expand control over the media. The KMT has in the past year proposed subjecting the NCC to legislative control, rather than control of the executive branch of government, similar to how the KMT also called for reviving the Special Investigative Division of the legislature and subordinating it to the legislature rather than the Ministry of Justice. It is to be seen if the idea comes up again.