He also proposed to place the confirmation of NCC nominees as the second bill for discussion. While the Executive Yuan has not yet sent the list of nominees to the legislature, Tseng said his caucus would use the copy his caucus obtained from the NCC review committee.

Agreement

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip William Lai said that although Tseng's proposal to place the draft bill regulating the release of government holdings on top of Friday's legislative agenda is clearly a political gesture, his caucus agreed to tackle the bill on Friday.

Lai, however, said the confirmation of NCC nominations should be shelved, because the legislature's confirmation should be based on the nominees presented by the Executive Yuan.

He called on the pan-blue camp to support the administration's proposal to call a provisional meeting and nominate another candidate. He also requested that Wang ask the review committee to comply with the government's proposition.

Verbal battle

A minor catfight then broke out, as two female legislators called each other names.

DPP Legislator Kuan Pi-ling engaged in a verbal clash with her KMT counterpart, Hung Hsiu-chu, over the draft bill regulating the release of government holdings.

Kuan accused Hung of being a bully and clueless about the negotiation process surrounding the bill, and Hung told Kuan to shut up and show her respect, because she was a veteran lawmaker.

The pan-blue dominated Procedure Committee voted 17 to 13 in favor of Tseng's proposal.

The committee deferred a motion filed by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus to form an inquiry commission to probe into the KMT's improperly acquired party assets. They also deferred a DPP proposal to invite President Chen Shui-bian to deliver a state-of-the-nation address, with a focus on the long-stalled arms procurement plan.

The committee rejected the arms procurement package for the 43rd time yesterday, and Lai filed a motion asking committee members to specify how long they plan to postpone the bill.

The committee voted against Lai's motion. Lai then led other DPP committee members in staging a protest on the floor, chanting "we want the arms procurement plan" and "we don't want to surrender."

Holding a placard reading "those opposing the arms procurement plan should guarantee that China won't attack Taiwan," Lai said his caucus would agree to scrap the arms procurement plan if the pan-blue camp could obtain China's pledge not to attack the country.

The committee also voted in favor of the KMT caucus' proposal to send DPP Legislator Lin Chung-mo to the legislature's Discipline Committee for punishment. Lin engaged in a physical clash with independent Legislator Chiu Yi last Wednesday during a finance committee meeting.

We need a Taiwanese Constitution

On Sunday, while attending the celebration of the 58th anniversary of the enacting of the Constitution of the Republic of China (ROC), Chinese Nationalist Party Chairman (KMT) Ma Ying-jeou pointed out that constitutional change (or "re-engineering") is secondary to the urgent task of realizing the rule of law in Taiwan through operation of the duel-executive system and the establishment of constitutional precedent. Ma agreed that Taiwan faces a constitutional crisis -- but who is responsible for creating this situation?

Ma believes that the crisis stems from the fact that an effective way of implementing the Constitution -- and its provision for five branches of government in particular -- is yet to be found. Given this fact, it is ironic that the pan-blue camp has blocked the review of President Chen Shui-bian's list of nominees for the Control Yuan in the legislature for nearly a year, effectively closing the body down. If they are dissatisfied with certain nominees, they can eliminate these from the list during review, but instead they have simply instituted a boycott on the pretext that the nomination process is flawed. As a legal expert, Ma must surely know that such unconstitutional behavior can only damage constitutional government in this country.

The National Communications Commission (NCC) is a classic example of how the pan-blues abuse their legislative majority to threaten the Cabinet, forcing the Executive Yuan to consider requesting a constitutional interpretation on the matter. In a recent meeting between Ma and People First Party Chairman James Soong, Soong proposed that Chen submit a new list of Control Yuan nominees that conforms to the principle of how the NCC was formed. This unconstitutional proposal constitutes a raid on the president's powers.

The spirit of the Constitution tends to favor a dual-executive system, with the right to nominate the premier vested in the president. The Constitution has no provision for what to do in the case of an opposition majority, and this still awaits the establishment of precedent. It should not be up to the pan-blue camp to make its own constitutional interpretations and demand that the president hand over his right to nominate the premier, despite a complete lack of precedent for this.

Taiwan's constitutional crisis is not simply a question of implementation, for it is an undisputed fact that in some respects the document presents some serious practical difficulties. The Constitution of the ROC has had a turbulent history, for soon after it was promulgated in 1947, civil war broke out and the Constitution was suspended. After martial law ended, the Constitution went through seven rounds of amendment, but as the document had been drawn up in reference to the vast and populous lands of China, no amount of tinkering could adapt it adequately to the needs of a small island like Taiwan. This is the strongest argument in favor of constitutional reform.

Although the pan-blue boycott on reviewing the nominees for the Control Yuan is absurd, it has highlighted the fact that although this branch of government has basically ceased to function over the last year, it has had little impact. Given this fact, would it not be appropriate to change to a three branch system of government? And as the current duel-executive system has resulted in an impasse that has persisted over many years, should not a solution be sought by altering the Constitution? In 1949 the ROC ceased to exist in all but name, and it cannot effectively speak for the people of Taiwan. Can we continue to ignore this problem? Seven attempts at constitutional amendment have failed to resolve the situation. Isn't it time to forge a new path by changing the nation's title and re-writing the Constitution for Taiwan?

Local languages matter

I have no idea what part of Taiwan Richard Zuercher (Letters, Dec. 24, page 8) lives in or has visited. Other than the fact that taxi drivers don't know the names of hotels in English, I didn't see one accurate statement in his letter.

English may be a global language, but in nations not colonized by Britain, English is not spoken by working-class people. It shouldn't be that difficult to get someone to write down the Chinese name of the hotel and show it to the taxi driver. All the taxi drivers read Chinese very well. Even in the US, along the Mexican border, while the taxi drivers do speak English, I'm sure they are more comfortable in Spanish. And if you go to Tijuana, as near to the US as it is, a taxi driver there probably won't speak English.

As to Taiwanese being a useless local dialect, I find it very colonial to call the different Chinese languages merely dialects. They sound nothing alike. So they use the same characters and ideographs. English, French, Spanish, German, Italian all use the same alphabet. Should we start referring to these languages as useless local dialects of Latin?

On a tangent, I saw some foreign spouses on a TV show recently. One spouse stated that he wouldn't teach English to anyone whose mother tongue was Taiwanese, as it was impossible. Whereas if Mandarin was the mother tongue, he thought he would be successful. Nonsense. I would choose a Taiwanese student any day over one with Mandarin as their mother tongue. Taiwanese has final consonant stops, and Mandarin doesn't. With practice, the pronunciation is much clearer.

Back from the detour. If Zuercher feels Taiwan is still provincial, he hasn't been here long enough to see the progress it has made. Ten years ago, very few people would speak English on the street. But now, often people at gas stations, supermarkets, restaurants and lunch-box stores try to speak to me in English. I usually understand them, too.

Next, what part of Taiwan does Zuercher live in?

My wife is Taiwanese, and she has never been ostracized because of me. In fact, people often ask her how a plain Jane like her could snag such a handsome foreigner for a husband. I would find any ostracism very un-Taiwanese. Any "ostracism" might actually be the natural shyness Taiwanese people exhibit when they aren't sure what to say if they think you don't speak Chinese.

The last point I will mention relates to Singapore's education system teaching "proper Chinese" (Mandarin) in school. I know for a fact that Taiwanese is one of the dominant dialects in Chinese communities around the world. It is one of several that exist in Singapore. Because Mandarin was chosen by Beijing as the official dialect, it is now taught as standard. But that doesn't make the other dialects less proper. Would he care to refer to English as improper Latin? Or improper old German?

I think either Zuercher hasn't been here in Taiwan very long, or he has gotten off to a bad start and hasn't seen enough of Taiwan to make a judgement. Whatever the case, he has it all wrong. Keep growing Taiwan. It's great to see the progress you are making.

Shervin Marsh

Luodong

It is difficult to imagine that Richard Zuercher, as a foreigner living in Taiwan, would criticize Taiwanese as "a useless, local dialect" and the promotion of the Taiwanese language as a "bizarre move." Having such an unfriendly attitude toward Taiwan, no wonder he finds it "virtually impossible to get a local wife or girlfriend."

Taiwanese is neither local nor a dialect, and its promotion is a noble move. The great majority of the people in Taiwan speak this language in their daily life. When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was in power, schoolchildren were forbidden from speaking "the local dialect," so named as to brainwash kids into thinking that Taiwan was nothing but a locality of China. If they spoke even a single word of their mother tongue, they would be fined or penalized. The KMT also restricted Taiwanese TV programs and prohibited Taiwanese songs.

In spite of the KMT's decades-long de-Taiwanization program, Taiwanese remains the most popular language throughout the nation because it is beautiful in pronunciation, intonation and expression -- somewhat like French -- music and pictures combined.

If this language were to ever disappear, it would be a major cultural loss to mankind.

During the KMT era, school textbooks on history and geography were virtually all related to China. As a result, schoolchildren know little about Taiwan, their own homeland. Today, as adults, they often get confused about their nationality: Is it Taiwanese, Chinese or both? It is unfortunate that Taiwanese are divided into the pan-green and pan-blue groups. This is all because of their vague nationality.

Democracy with a vague nationality is like a person with a split personality. If Taiwan's democracy is to survive and prosper, a unique nationality is the key.

Charles Hong

Columbus, Ohio

Chen ruling limits political debate

By Thomas Weishing Huang

Taipei District Court judges, delivering their verdict on the "soft coup" slander case brought against President Chen Shui-bian recently, explained that the president did not enjoy freedom of speech.

Certainly, the presidency represents a system, an institution, but the position of president is nevertheless occupied by an individual. The institution of the presidency doesn't actually do anything per se, it is the individual who occupies the post who gets things done. In the same vein, it is true that the institution of the presidency cannot say anything, it is only the individual who can speak. Therefore, the question lies in whether or not the president as an individual enjoys freedom of speech, not whether freedom of speech belongs to the presidency as an institution. If we accept this line of reasoning, is it possible to also accept the judge's argument of identifying the presidency with the president?

There is nothing actually wrong with seeing the presidency as an institution; this approach was originally used by Japanese and German academics to facilitate research. It is faintly ridiculous, however, to approach the matter at hand purely in the abstract.

Political debate is not about the cold analysis of how systems operate, it is about the real life interactions and struggles of political players. In the same way, a verdict is reached through the judge making a decision as an individual, and not through a certain institution just collecting evidence and reaching a conclusion based on it.

A story from the UK serves as a vivid demonstration of this. A lawyer jumped aboard an already moving train to ask a judge to consider a certain verdict: the judge agreed with his argument and approved a verdict in accordance with it. There is also the case of US Supreme Court judge William Orville Douglas, whose walks in the mountains were often interrupted by lawyers seeking to consult him about appeals. Where was the court in these cases? Where were the institutions? The answer is that the institution of the court is not the court building itself, it is the judges who pronounce their verdicts. Again, it is not the presidency that speaks, it is the president.

Naturally, the president should not enjoy complete immunity in what he says. Whether or not the "soft coup" claims actually constitute the type of issue that can be publicly debated and are appropriate to debate, is subject to discussion.

However, to say that the president does not have the right to criticize individuals in the public sphere or to comment about public issues not only goes against the spirit behind the well-known US Supreme Court rulings -- in the New York Times vs Sullivan and Hustler Magazine vs Falwell cases -- which required proof of "actual malice," it also goes against Interpretation No. 509 by our own Council of Grand Justices, which says the burden of proof is not on the defendant.

The crux of the matter lies in whether we actually want to broaden political debate. It seems to me that politicians are a hardy breed quite able to protect themselves. Any restrictions placed on opinions expressed about public issues serve only to limit the electorate's ability to come to their own conclusions. Inappropriate comments made by politicians should be sanctioned by the people, not the courts.

Thomas Weishing Huang is a visiting professor at the Law School of Shih Hsin University.