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EDITORIAL: Ma is
lying about the nuclear plant
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has said, following a suggestion by Premier Jiang
Yi-huah (江宜樺) last week that the government order an immediate halt to the
construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市)
Gongliao District (貢寮) without waiting for a referendum, that such a move would
be unconstitutional and illegal. Either Ma, who holds a doctorate in juridical
science from Harvard Law School, has misunderstood the Council of Grand
Justices’ constitutional interpretation, or he is willfully misleading the
legislature and the public.
Ma’s contention that halting construction would be unconstitutional could be
referring to the Council of Grand Justices’ 2000 constitutional interpretation
No. 520, necessitated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s
decision to halt the plant’s construction. After this interpretation was made,
the government had to announce construction would continue. However, that is not
to say that the interpretation deemed halting the construction unconstitutional
in itself.
Constitutional interpretation No. 520 said the budget passed by the legislature
was a massnahmegesetz (“law of measures”), and that if the government wanted to
halt construction of the plant, it should have reported this to the legislature.
Had the policy change secured majority support within the legislature, the
budget could have been rescinded and the government could have proceeded. If a
majority in the legislature opposed the move, or came to any other resolution,
the government would have had to negotiate a solution or choose a way forward
allowable within the constitutional framework.
The DPP government conceded back in 2000 not because the grand justices ruled
that halting the construction was unconstitutional, but because the economy was
weak and the government was facing a boycott by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
opposition, which controlled a majority in the legislature. It felt it had to
reverse its decision to avoid a political war. Therefore, any suggestion by Ma
of unconstitutionality is uninformed and entirely without basis.
Second, there would be little chance of a repeat of the chaos of 2000 if the
Executive Yuan announced a halt to construction of the plant now. The KMT
controls both the executive and legislative branches, and if the Executive Yuan
announced the halt and then arranged the budget and made the relevant amendments
to the law, the KMT-controlled legislature could finish the required procedures.
There would be nothing unconstitutional or illegal about this. Not only would
the opposition parties not try to stand in their way, they would be positively
overjoyed and give their wholehearted assistance. In fact, this would be a very
rare case of legislature-wide unanimity and unity.
Ma is no political maverick: As a leader, he is very cautious. He is not going
to expose himself to risk or take responsibility for more than he needs to.
True, the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster did shake his confidence in the
safety of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, but he is still leaning toward having
the plant’s fate decided through a public referendum.
When Jiang responded to public opinion — the sheer force of which exceeded all
expectations — expressed in the recent anti-nuclear demonstrations around the
country, Ma immediately spoke up to qualify the words of his premier, saying
that halting construction on the plant would be unconstitutional. His intention
was to rein in KMT legislators, and to sway public opinion and the ongoing
debate.
Ma is reluctant to take responsibility for what happens to the plant, and wants
to hand its fate over to a referendum that has what many perceive as an overly
high threshold requirement. However, his obvious attempts to manipulate the
situation will only add to his legacy of inaction and incompetence.
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