Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: lienyuan lee/WikiCommons/CC BY 3.0
THE KMT’S EFFORTS to undo the Tsai administration’s pension reforms have led to pushback, with the DPP-controlled Executive Yuan filing for a constitutional interpretation on the issue.
Whether or not there is, in fact, a constitutional interpretation is another matter altogether. Last year, legislation passed by the KMT mandated a minimum of ten justices to be on the bench of the Constitutional Court for rulings to be made. The KMT then systematically blocked any attempt by the Lai administration to appoint new justices so that there were unable to be constitutional interpretations made by the Constitutional Court.
The Constitutional Court moved to unfreeze itself last December. However, three of the eight justices on the Constitutional Court refused to go along with this vote, calling for political solutions to unfreezing the Constitutional Court. It remains unclear if the Constitutional Court can make rulings in this state.
Though the Executive Yuan has filed for a constitutional interpretation, it is not refusing to countersign the bill. This is notable.
Late last year, Premier Cho Jung-tai refused to countersign legislation regarding allocations to local governments from the central government. Namely, KMT-controlled local governments have cried foul, due to reduced allocations from the central government to local governments after budget cuts passed by the KMT earlier in 2025. The budget cuts were the largest set of cuts in Taiwanese history, slashing 1/3rd of operational government spending. On the other hand, Cho’s refusal to countersign legislation passed by the Executive Yuan was the first time in Taiwanese history that a premier had refused to countersign legislation.
Cho is not doing that this time, seemingly to demonstrate that the Executive Yuan will reserve refusing to countersign legislation passed by the Legislative Yuan for the most extreme of circumstances. Effectively, through this action, the Executive Yuan would be appropriating a de facto veto power that it never previously had in the setup of Taiwan’s government system.
The Executive Yuan’s move at the time was seen as a high-stakes gambit aimed at forcing the KMT to back down on its current freeze of the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court would be able to strike down the new powers appropriated by the Executive Yuan. Indeed, demonstrating this, at the time, the DPP challenged the KMT to file for no-confidence in Cho if they disagreed with these actions–a move that would activate a legal mechanism that allows President Lai Ching-te to dissolve the legislature and call for a new set of elections.
More broadly, contention over the KMT’s efforts to roll back the Tsai administration’s pension reforms reflects several matters. For one, pensions have long been a pork barrel issue for the KMT. Public servants, teachers, police, and military personnel historically enjoyed generous pensions from the KMT during authoritarian times in return for political loyalty. As such, the KMT would be attempting to benefit demographics that have historically supported it by restoring the privileges they enjoyed during the authoritarian period for loyalty. That being said, the Tsai administration made the pension reforms in order to prevent Taiwan’s pension system from going bankrupt, largely framing the issue as one of generational justice.
To this extent, in contending over budget cuts, pensions, and revenue allocation from the central government to local governments, the KMT would be attempting to claim legislative authority over government financing, when this is a power of the Executive Yuan in the setup of Taiwan’s government system. On the whole, the KMT-controlled legislature has engaged in a number of efforts to claim powers from the executive and judiciary in past years, including over media regulation, as well as security and investigatory powers, while making moves to reduce the power of other branches and to subordinate them to the legislature.
Partisan contention is set to continue, then. In appealing to the Constitutional Court for an interpretation, the Lai administration may be attempting to again signal that unfreezing the Constitutional Court is the way out of this current impasse in Taiwanese politics.