Legislative Yuan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Legislative Yuan
seal building
logo building
Basic data
Seat: Taipei
Legislative period : 4 years
First session: 1928
MPs: 113
Current legislative period
Last choice: January 11, 2020
Chair: Speaker of Parliament
Su Jia-chyuan ( DPP )
Current distribution of seats (10th legislative yuan)

10th Legislative Yuan Seat Composition.svg

Distribution of seats: Government (63)
  • DPP 62
  • Independent 1
    • Supported (2)
  • TSP 1
  • Independent 1
    • Opposition (48)
  • KMT 38
  • TPP 5
  • NPP 3
  • Independent 2
    		•
    Website
    [1]
    The Legislative Yuan Building in the Zhongzheng District , Taipei City

    The Legislative Yuan ( Chinese  立法院 , Pinyin Lìfǎ Yuàn , English Law-establishing Court ) is one of the five Yuans (State Councils) of the Republic of China on Taiwan in Taipei and the Taiwanese Parliament , which is endowed with the legislative competence and the work of the executive Yuans monitored. There are also yuan for the executive , judicial , control and examination branches . The Legislative Yuan was founded according to Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People and is comparable to the Western legislature in terms of the separation of powers . Informally, the legislative yuan is also called parliament ( 國會  /  国会 , Guóhuì ). The current President of Parliament is Su Jia-chyuan ( DPP ).

    composition

    In the election to the Legislative Yuan, 113 MPs are elected for four years. A two-vote system with combined majority and proportional representation is used :

    • In each of 73 constituencies, one member is directly elected according to the relative majority vote.
    • Six other MPs are directly elected by the indigenous peoples of Taiwan .
    • The remaining 34 seats were awarded by the second vote using proportional representation. Overseas Chinese and overseas Taiwanese are also eligible to vote. There is a 5 percent threshold .

    job

    Regular work

    The Legislative Yuan has the power to approve or reject laws. The extent of control over the Executive Yuan was unclear during the 1990s, but the Executive Yuan only had to defend itself to the President of the Republic.

    Much of the work of the Legislative Yuan is done by legislative committees. TV interviews where Executive Yuan members ask questions from opposition members are very popular. The other Yuans have the right to pass bills to the Legislative Yuan. However, these bills still have to be co-signed by a certain number of legislators. When a bill is processed by the Legislative Yuan, there are three readings .

    Physical arguments

    Since democratization in the 1990s, the legislative yuan has been notorious for the occasional violent clashes that arise in controversial political debates:

    • There were many cases of fistfighting in the 1990s, sparked by disagreements over current decision-making processes.
    • On March 23, 2004, there were tussles in the debate about the re-counting of votes after the 2004 presidential election .
    • On May 30, 2006, DPP MP Wang Shu-hui picked up the paper containing the draft law establishing direct transportation links with the People's Republic of China and put it in her mouth to prevent it from being voted on. Kuomintang MPs pulled her hair to force her to spit it out. She did this a little later, but immediately tore up the paper.
    • On May 8, 2007, there were disputes over the speaker's platform, with boxing lashes being distributed and MPs spraying each other with water.
    • On June 25, 2013, there was a loud scuffle over a planned tax on investment income.
    • On August 2, 2013, there were tumultuous scenes around a planned referendum on a fourth nuclear power plant.
    • At the beginning of July 2017, there were particularly violent disputes over the infrastructure measures planned by the government. The opposition accused the ruling DPP of favoring its own political supporters. MPs made a move to throw chairs across the plenary hall. Others pulled the electrical plugs of the loudspeaker system to prevent the text of the law from being read out, there were wrestling fights among individual MPs, etc.

    The sometimes tumultuous scenes often seem shocking to western observers, while Taiwanese usually take them much more calmly. The jostling and scuffling, some of which were broadcast live on television, should not be taken so seriously and are an expression of the vital and lively Taiwanese democracy. In some cases, it was also pure exhibition fights, with which the MPs wanted to show their voters that they were committed to their interests. Others viewed the events more critically. The fights are shameful and distract from the actual content. Often the contending parties and the reporting journalists are not fully informed about the content of the disputed points.

    history

    The first legislative yuan was established in the first capital of the Republic of China, Nanjing, after the northern campaign . Its 51 members were installed for a two-year term. The 4th Legislative Yuan increased membership to 194 and the term of office was extended to 14 years because of the Second Sino-Japanese War . In terms of the KMT's understanding of politics, the first four legislative yuan were more of a political guardianship.

    The current version of the Constitution of the Republic of China came into effect after free elections on January 1, 1947, and the first legislative yuan after World War II met on May 18, 1948 with 760 members. Six preparatory meetings on May 8, 1948 were necessary for this, during which Dr. Sun Fo and Chen Li-fu were elected as President and Vice President. In 1949, the Republic of China government lost mainland China to the Red Army under Mao Zedong, and the Legislative Yuan, along with the entire Republic of China government, fled to Taiwan , where Taipei became the provisional capital and the new seat of the Yuan. On February 24, 1950, 380 members gathered in the Sun Yat-sen Hall in Taipei.

    Legislative Yuan Assembly Room (2013)

    The loss of mainland China and its electorate made new elections in China impossible, as mainland China should still belong to the Republic of China and the Republic of China did not want to deprive its citizens of their rights and thus underline the rightful claim of the Republic of China to the mainland. The judicial yuan therefore decided to postpone further elections until the mainland was legally recaptured and free elections could take place again, without taking into account that the long-established Taiwanese were not part of the electorate at the time. Over the years, some members elected on the mainland have died, so their seats have been given to 11 new first-time Taiwanese members. They were elected in 1969. 51 new members were elected for a 3-year term in 1972, 52 in 1975, 97 in 1980, 98 in 1983, 100 in 1986 and another 100 in 1989. Although the elected members did not have a majority, To reject laws that u. U. Taiwanese were forced on by mainland Chinese , so they could use the yuan as a platform for their own interests. Opposition parties (see Dangwai ) were banned in Taiwan until 1991 . In the 1970s there were some legislative candidates from the Dangwai, which formed the Democratic Progressive Party in 1985 .

    The original members of the Legislative Yuan, who were still from the mainland, remained in office until December 31, 1991 and were forced to resign by the Justice Yuan as a result of the democratization in Taiwan. The 1989 elected members remained until 161 new members were elected to the second legislative yuan in 1992. The third legislative yuan was elected in 1995 with 164 members and a three-year term. The fourth yuan was elected in 1998 with a total of 225 members and included legislators from the disbanded provincial legislature of Taiwan Province .

    The legislative yuan gained in importance during the presidential election in 2000 , when the new ruling party, the DPP, provided the president, while the legislative yuan still had a majority of Kuomintang members. The 2001 parliamentary elections were very interesting because the pan-blue coalition always won with only a slightly larger majority over the ruling pan-green coalition . This made voting on drafts dependent on defectors and non-party members and developed into a party-motivated ongoing dispute between the legislative yuan and the executive yuan.

    With 70 percent popular support, the Legislative Yuan voted 217 to 1 on August 23, 2004 for a package of reforms:

    • The number of seats was to be halved from 225 to 113
    • Change to a double-vote voting system
    • Extension of the term of office from three to four years, to align with the presidential elections.

    The new electoral system requires 73 majority seats (one for each constituency), six seats for Taiwanese indigenous people, and the remaining 34 seats will be allocated through party lists. Every county has at least one constituency, which guarantees at least one seat in the Legislative Yuan, while half of the seats for party members must be women.

    A DPP application demanded the civil right to initiate constitutional referendums, which was given up due to insufficient support. The proposal has been criticized because the possibility of changing the constitution too freely could lead to excessive abuse; while a three-quarters majority is needed in a legislative yuan vote, which reveals a consensus, a citizens' referendum could divide the population. It was also feared that this right could lead to a referendum on Taiwan's independence, which could result in conflict with the People's Republic of China .

    The Legislative Yuan also suggested granting yourself the right to demand re-election of the president and vice-president at any time. (This was proposed by a quarter of parliamentarians and approved for national referendum by two-thirds of lawmakers.) The Legislative Yuan also has the power to indict the President and Vice-Presidents and bring them before the Council of Chief Justice .

    On July 20, 2007, the Legislative Yuan passed a lobbying law.

    Wang Jin-pyng controversy and wiretapping scandal

    In August 2013, Speaker of the Parliament Wang was accused by the Ministry of Justice's Special Investigation Unit of unduly influencing the public prosecutor's office in an investigation into opposition politician Ker Chien-ming (Democratic Progressive Party). President and Kuomintang chairman Ma Ying-jeou said Wang had done great damage to Taiwanese democracy and announced that Wang would be expelled from the Kuomintang on September 12, 2013. With the expulsion from the party, Wang threatened to lose his mandate and thus the loss of his office as speaker of parliament. He sued the exclusion from the party and obtained an injunction, after which he can remain in office for the time being.

    In the course of the affair, it became known that the special investigation unit of the Ministry of Justice had wiretapped not only Wang's telephone calls, but also numerous other members of parliament and even the parliamentary switchboard, which triggered loud protests against the Ministry of Justice and President Ma both in parliament and among the population resulted in the resignation of Justice Minister Tseng Yung-fu .

    Parliament occupation by demonstrators in 2014

    The occupied chamber

    On March 18, 2014, the parliament building was occupied by mostly student demonstrators and citizens' groups ( sunflower movement ) after the faction of the ruling Kuomintang party, contrary to previous agreements with the opposition parties, unilaterally ratified a controversial trade and services agreement between Taiwan and China as part of the framework agreement on Economic Cooperation (ECFA). Following concessions from the government, the occupation ended peacefully on April 10 after 24 days.

    List of Presidents of the Legislative Yuan

    Before the 1947 Constitution :

    1. Hu Hanmin (1928-10-1932-1)
    2. Chang Ji (1932-1-1932-1)
    3. Sun Fo (1932-1-1947-5)

    According to the 1947 constitution :

    1. Sun Fo (1947-5-1948-12)
    2. Tung Gun-shin (1948-12-1950-12)
    3. Liu Jin-chin (1950-12-1951-10)
      (deputy) Huang Guo-shu (1951-10-1952-3)
    4. Chang Tao-fan (1952-3-1961-2)
    5. Huang Guo-shu (1961-2-1972-2)
    6. Ni Wen-ya (1972-2-1988-12)
    7. Liu Kwo-tsai (1988-10 - 1990-2)
    8. Liang Su-yung (1990-2-1992-1)
    9. Liu Sung-pan (1992-1 - 1999-2)
    10. Wang Jin-pyng (1999-2 - 2016-1)
    11. Su Jia-chyuan (2016-2-)

    See also

    Web links

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ DPP's Su Jia-chyuan elected legislative speaker , Focus Taiwan News Channel, February 1, 2016
    2. ^ A b Cindy Sui: Taiwan's brawling in parliament is a political way of life. BBC News, July 18, 2017, accessed July 18, 2017 .
    3. ^ Fight breaks out in Taiwan's parliament on YouTube
    4. ↑ Brawl breaks out in Taiwan parliament in row over tax.BBC News, July 25, 2013, accessed July 18, 2017 .
    5. ↑ Mass fight breaks out between rival politicians in Taiwan parliament on YouTube
    6. ↑ Taiwan MPs brawl in parliament over nuclear vote. BBC News, August 2, 2013, accessed July 18, 2017 .
    7. ↑ Fight Breaks Out Between Rivals in Taiwanese Parliament on YouTube
    8. ^ Taiwanese parliament broke out into a water balloon and chair-throwing brawl on YouTube
    9. ↑ "Parliamentary antics Said to be staged," Taiwan News (newspaper), 58th Edition, no. 322, May 18, 2007, p. 2
    10. ↑ Shih Hsiu-chuan: "Taiwan Becomes third country to pass Lobbying Act" , Taipei Times , July 21 of 2007.
    11. ↑ The China Post, September 12, 2013
    12. ↑ asienspiegel, October 3, 2013
    13. ^ Radio Taiwan International, September 29, 2013 ( Memento of October 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
    14. ↑ Focus Taiwan News Channel, September 29, 2013
    15. ^ The Diplomat, March 20, 2014
    16. ↑ CNN, March 24, 2014
    17. ↑ Focus Taiwan, April 10, 2014