Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Cho Jung-tai/Facebook
PREMIER CHO JUNG-TAI has again refused to countersign legislation advanced by the KMT-controlled legislature. This is regarding three bills: the Act Governing the Settlement of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations, the Organic Law of the Legislative Yuan, and the Satellite Broadcasting Act.
The Executive Yuan historically does not have the power of veto over legislation passed by the legislature. Yet appropriating this new power, in refusing to countersign laws, is a response to the fact that the Constitutional Court was frozen by the KMT through legislation last year.
The first bill that the Executive Yuan refused to countersign was regarding revenue allocation between the central government and local governments. This continued the dispute between the executive and legislature regarding which branch controls powers of budgeting. The legislature has attempted to pry powers over budgeting from the Executive Yuan in past years through freezing or cutting 1/3rd of the government’s operational budget.
More generally, the legislature has sought to strip away powers from other branches of government, including investigative and prosecution powers, security powers over maritime restricted areas, and media regulatory powers, while maximizing its own influence. This is part of the pan-Blue camp’s adaptation to the fact that it currently only controls one branch of government, the legislative, and does not control any other branch.
The second bill that the Executive Yuan turned down countersigning was regarding funding for the renovation of military villages. The Executive Yuan argued that legislation was intended to benefit one specific military village, the Tsu Ren Eighth Village, and did not apply universally. At the same time, the Executive Yuan probably saw an opportunity to attack the KMT for what the DPP has framed as a pork barrel policy intended to benefit individuals who already occupy expensive real estate in downtown Taipei.
This proves similar with regards to the Executive Yuan refusing to countersign changes to Act Governing the Settlement of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations. The legislation is attempting to reverse the labeling of the China Youth Corps as a KMT-affiliated organization. This, too, stands open to the accusation that this is attempting to benefit an organization that was historically subordinate to the KMT and used as a means of funneling party assets retained from property seizures during the authoritarian period to what were ostensibly private hands, to avoid turning them over to the government for scrutiny.
In the meantime, changes by the legislature to the Satellite Broadcasting Act are intended to restore pan-Blue CtiTV to broadcast. The Executive Yuan has declined to countersign, as this would push CTV, which now occupies the Channel 52 slot that CtiTV formerly did, off air. CtiTV had lost its broadcast license in 2020 over a set of issues that returned to the network’s favoritism of pan-Blue candidates.
The KMT, however, aims to restore CtiTV to air in order to allow the network to continue to propagandize on its behalf, as well as part of broader-ranging attempts to pry powers over media from the executive branch of government. The KMT has, for example, proposed subjecting the National Communications Commission, which it froze through legislation similar to the means by which it froze the Constitutional Court, to legislative authority.
Lastly, changes to the Organic Law of the Legislative Yuan were intended to remove the requirement that legislators provide invoices for subsidies meant for legislative assistants. One of the most common categories of legislative corruption is embezzling subsidies meant for aides using false paperwork, or by hiring friends or relatives as aides. But the changes were accused of making it even easier for graft to take place using legislative subsidies, leading to blowback from a number of legislative assistants in both political camps. Hence, Cho striking this down would be to target a controversial issue, as well as another instance in which the pan-Blue camp was accused of attempting to make it easier for corruption to take place.
It can be seen that the Executive Yuan will continue to exercise its new power of veto, then. It is possible that the Constitutional Court will eventually move to strike this new power down, with the Constitutional Court unfreezing itself late last year, but only some of the justices deciding to carry through with the unfreezing. Even if all currently serving justices appeared at a hearing on a Constitutional Court case earlier this month for the first time since they split on the issue of unfreezing the Constitutional Court, it is not clear if this means the Constitutional Court has resumed operations.