Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Eric Chu/Facebook
BATTLE LINES HAVE been drawn in the legislature, with the TPP and KMT voting down most of the DPP’s Constitutional Court nominees.
Legislation passed by the KMT last week mandates ten justices for the Constitutional Court to make majority rulings. The Constitutional Court currently only has eight justices, seeing as seven justices retired after their terms ended in October.
As such, if the KMT is successful in blocking any of the DPP’s future nominees, this will prevent the Constitutional Court from making judgments. The KMT is expected to try and block any of the Lai administration’s appointees, then.
It may not surprise that the KMT indeed voted down all seven of the Lai administration’s nominees. What has drawn controversy, however, is that the TPP endorsed National Taiwan University professor Liu Ching-yi while voting down the other six candidates.
In a further twist, the DPP voted as a bloc for all of the candidates, except for Liu Ching-yi. The DPP legislative caucus voted down Liu’s appointment, even though Liu is a nominee by the Lai administration.
The decision to vote down Liu is seen as coming from DPP caucus leader Ker Chien-ming. Ker suggested past statements by Liu showed her unsuitability for office, including times in which Liu suggested that former President Tsai Ing-wen or Premier Su Tseng-chang were corrupt. This also included times in which Liu suggested that Tsai’s Ph. D dissertation was fake.
The Constitutional Court. Photo credit: Jiang/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
Nevertheless, Ker’s apparent decision still surprised, seeing as Liu is a respected figure in the pan-Green camp. Liu has since reacted strongly against Ker on social media, seeing as the move can be seen as a betrayal, with Liu unexpectedly thrown under the bus by the DPP.
The Lai administration has stated that it respects Ker’s decision, upholding the autonomy of legislative decision-making from the presidency. At the same time, it is clear that the Lai administration and Ker Chien-ming’s leadership of the DPP may not be on the same page, and this is a case in point.
It is as yet unclear as to whether the move was intended by Ker as a show of strength against Lai, to show that Lai must placate him, and should not assume that he has absolute control of the DPP legislative caucus. Still, many in the DPP may have tired of Ker’s many years as DPP caucus leader, with Ker seen as a symbol of DPP corruption especially during the Chen Shui-bian years, and it is to be seen whether the incident leads to pushback against Ker.
That the TPP supported Liu may have inadvertently hurt her chances, in framing her as a figure that some elements of the pan-Blue camp would have been fine with taking up a position as a justice.
In this sense, that the DPP legislative caucus turned against Liu signals the stark partisanship in Taiwanese politics at present. Still, the TPP was likely looking for ways to distinguish its platform from that of the KMT–if ever so slightly–at a time that it is increasingly seen as a “little Blue” flank party of the KMT. Liu may have been caught in the cross-fire.
Either way, it is very probable that the incident will be used as political ammunition for the KMT and TPP going forward. The attempt will be to direct attention to Liu’s rejection by the DPP legislative caucus, so that the public is less aware of the KMT legislative caucus rejecting the DPP’s slate of nominees as a whole.
Media reports have suggested a possible looming crisis for the Constitutional Court, given that it has less than a full slate, and new laws intend to limit its ability to seek judgments. But the Executive Yuan is likely to appeal to the Constitutional Court about the constitutionality of the new laws. The Constitutional Court is not likely to look kindly on an attempt to limit its powers either. As such, much uncertainty is ahead.