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  • 6/16/2025
Taiwan's smaller opposition Taiwan People's Party is pushing to abolish Taiwan's government watchdog, a distinct branch of the government called the Control Yuan. The proposal has passed the first stage with a quarter of the country's lawmakers signing off on it, but there is a very high bar to effect a constitutional change, as would be needed.
Transcript
00:00Leading off with our top story, Taiwan's smaller opposition Taiwan People's Party
00:05has called for the abolishment of the country's government watchdog.
00:09The TPP says the body is actively working in the interest of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
00:15The control union is an independent branch of government that has the power to impeach, censure and audit officials.
00:33TPP chair and lawmaker Huang Guocheng last week put forth a proposal to abolish it.
00:38The proposal has passed its first stage, garnering signatures from a quarter of Taiwan's 113 lawmakers.
00:46The TPP has previously supported getting rid of the control union as well,
00:50but the party is now questioning the motives and timing of this current push.
01:08Abolishing the control union would require a constitutional amendment,
01:13which needs both legislative and public approval to pass.
01:17To find out more about what the control union does and why there's a push to remove it,
01:21I spoke with Courtney Donovan Smith, a political analyst based in central Taiwan.
01:27Can you tell us a little bit about what the control union does,
01:30and is it an entity that's exclusive to Taiwan's government?
01:33The control union is the, in Taiwan, it's the only one in the world.
01:37Taiwan has a unique five branches of government arrangement,
01:42which also includes the examination yuan.
01:47And the purpose of these two is that when Sun Yat-sen brought in the constitution,
01:53is that the control yuan and the examination yuan reflect some Chinese imperial traditions
02:01about monitoring government officials and to avoid things like corruption and other misbehavior.
02:11Why are the opposition TPP and the Guomingdang now calling to abolish the control union?
02:16Well, not only the TPP and parts of the KMT are looking to examine it.
02:23There was, for a while, the DPP also supported eliminating both of these branches of government.
02:31Now, the traditional criticisms, and there is some evidence to back this,
02:36is that the appointees to the control union are political.
02:40And, of course, that leads to allegations of witch hunts, for example,
02:46because their job is to independently investigate, audit,
02:51and can issue writs of impeachment against government officials.
02:56Well, the DPP is concerned, and they've expressed this, they've expressed so,
03:02that they are afraid of what they refer to it as being politicized.
03:07They also have some concerns about the powers of the control yuan being shifted to the legislative yuan,
03:14which they fear will be used maliciously against the executive yuan.
03:20Now, let's say that the control yuan is abolished.
03:23How would that tip the scales of political power in Taiwan, if at all?
03:27Well, this is the constitution, so it's held to a much higher bar.
03:30You have to first, to propose it, you need one quarter of the legislature to do so,
03:39which they have already passed that hurdle.
03:41The second hurdle is then to set up a committee to examine changing the constitution.
03:51They have to come up with a proposal,
03:52and then that requires three quarters of the legislators to get behind it.
04:01Once that threshold is passed, which is going to be difficult,
04:05then it goes to a public vote.
04:08This is a very interesting one,
04:09because last year the KMT and the TPP passed a law
04:15which would have passed some of the powers of both the control yuan
04:22and the judicial yuan into the hands of the legislature.
04:28So that would have allowed them to interrogate government officials in the legislature.
04:36Now, this was ruled unconstitutional by the constitutional court
04:41precisely because it was taking functions allotted to other branches of government.
04:48So a lot of this, I think, would have to be hashed out in the committee.
04:52Now, the TPP, obviously, here has veto power
04:54if they want to get to that three quarters threshold.
04:57So what that's going to mean is they're going to have to propose the TPP right now.
05:04It's their proposal on the board.
05:05They're going to have to propose compromises that would be acceptable to the TPP,
05:13who is, of course, the current ruling power,
05:15so that they feel that this is not,
05:18these powers could not be abused by the legislature.
05:23That was political analyst Courtney Donovan-Smith.

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