Disempowering the National Assembly

Lung-chu Chen

April 24, 2000 is a memorable day in Taiwan's constitutional history. On that day, the deputies of the National Assembly adopted a constitutional amendment package by which the Assembly is disempowered. By the amendment package, as of May 20, the National Assembly will be " mission- specific " in character, and cease to be a permanent standing body. It will no longer meet regularly, but will convene to act only when constitutional amendments, national boundary changes, or impeachment of the President or the Vice President have been formally proposed by the Legislative Yuan. The Assembly's former powers will be transferred to the Legislative Yuan, including the powers to initiate constitutional amendments, to change the nation's boundaries, to impeach the President or the Vice President, to approve Presidential appointments to the Judicial, Examination and Control Yuans, and to hear the President's State of the Nation report. New deputies of the Assembly will be elected on a " mission- only " basis, using a party proportional –representation system, and will serve only for a month to perform a specific task.

These changes have turned the constitutional crisis, as generated by the controversial Interpretation No. 499 of the Council of Grand Justices, into a new opportunity. It marks in a way a new beginning for Taiwan's constitutional process. This was made possible because of a combination of factors, including the pressures for holding a new election for deputies, the cooperation between the KMT and the DPP, their employment of the tactics of carrot and stick, public opinion, and deputies' own sense of historic mission and constitutional moment.

The new changes will in effect make the Legislative Yuan the sole congressional body, with full-fledging legislative and related powers. The separation of powers system will clearly move toward that of three powers ( the legislative, executive, and judicial ) rather than five powers. It means that at an appropriate time a special consultative body, consisting of political parties' representatives and constitutional scholars and experts, should be formed to study and propose a thorough and integrated constitutional reform.