00:00Ruling and opposition lawmakers are discussing plans for President Lai Qingde to deliver a rare address at the legislature.
00:07Still unclear is whether and how Lai would face lawmakers' questions.
00:29Opposition parties have repeatedly pushed for Lai to address the legislature and face questioning.
00:34Lai's office previously declined, saying it is unconstitutional for lawmakers to question the president directly.
00:41But Legislative Speaker Han Guo Yu said Monday that Lai is now open to going to the legislature if questions
00:47are handled collectively rather than individually.
00:50The presidential office says Lai will only accept the invitation if the procedure is constitutional.
00:56If it goes, Lai would be the first president to address the legislature since 2000.
01:03For more on why a presidential address and questioning at the legislature is so controversial,
01:09Leslie Liao spoke with Professor Ye Yaoyuan at the University of St. Thomas.
01:14The opposition-held legislature has been trying to get President Lai into the legislature for a question and answer session
01:21with lawmakers,
01:22as well as delivering kind of a state-of-the-nation report.
01:26Now, the presidential office has said that such an arrangement is unconstitutional.
01:32Can you tell us what their argument is and why is it unconstitutional?
01:35Taiwan isn't really a presidential country, which means the president is not the leader or not the responsible holder for
01:44the executive power.
01:46So the president holds the executive power as the chief of the military and also directing his foreign policy.
01:52But it does not account for, you know, our domestic policy, health policy, education policy.
01:58It also was dedicated to the premier of Taiwan.
02:01Taiwan is a semi-presidential system where the premier is supposed to be reporting to the legislative chamber.
02:08So the president is not holding liable for the executive power.
02:12They say that the legislature, at least Speaker Han, said that they have a workaround for this constitutional issue,
02:19which is so-called consolidated questioning.
02:22What's different about this?
02:24I mean, we're trying not to make this questioning process like a big joke or a big show for a
02:31specific legislative UN.
02:32The Speaker of Legislative UN, Han Guo Yu, proposed that there will be a workaround to help.
02:39So I think by the concept, as I have seen now, it seems like they will organize like what type
02:45of questions from each party.
02:47And they will probably provide the questions to the president's office so that they have time to prepare and respond
02:54to such questions.
02:55And eventually, I mean, there won't be no surprise, which means you won't have a specific legislator just jump to
03:02the stage and start questioning something that's nonsense.
03:04So which means this will help, in theory, to hold the conversations on the agenda only.
03:12So what's the constitutionality of this arrangement, in your opinion, in general?
03:19Does this still infringe on the Constitution?
03:21So if this is the president giving a speech and being able to clarify the budgetary issue, foreign policy issue,
03:31I mean, disregard what it is on any constitutional ground, any president has the power to do so, right?
03:36But on the other hand, this is not like the routine, you know, questioning process from the executive UN to
03:43the legislative UN.
03:44So once we differentiate that, I mean, that won't be causing any constitutional issues in Taiwan.
03:51And to me, I think it's still a good gesture because currently, we definitely have a gridlock in between, you
03:58know, different parties.
03:59I mean, the incoming party and the opposition parties in the legislative UN.
04:04And the president helping to address such an issue, helping to show the olive branch to the opposition party.
04:11I think this is a good sign.
04:13That was Professor Ye Yao Yuan with the University of St. Thomas.
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