Taiwan

Taiwanese legal system by Hsin Yun Jung

Legislative Yuan of Taiwan

Under Dr. Sun Yat sen, the founder of the Republic of China, which is also widely known as Taiwan, he established the five Yuans of the central government namely the executive, the legislative, the examination, the control and the judicial Yuans. Out of the five Yuans the legislative Yuan has the supreme national legislative power on behalf of its people. The structure of the legislative yuan consists of one President and one vice president both elected by the current governing parties of Taiwan. As for now, it is the KuoMingTang who has the power over the legislative yuan. Once the serving term of our nation’s president expires, the president of the legislative yuan shall resign as well. There are many other administrative of the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan as well, such as the secretariat, general affairs department, budget center, conference department, organic laws and statutes bureau department and so on.

The Legislative Yuan has the power to decide resolutions on the final account bills or bills concerning martial law, amnesties, declarations of war or peace, treaties, and other important affairs of Taiwan. Any and every law, statute, special act or any general principle has to pass by the Legislative Yuan in order to come into force and perform the action. The declarations made in the Executive Yuan by any central government agency must be submitted to the Legislative Yuan for a final examination to determine whether it shall be ass or not. The legislative Yuan may inform and request the initiating government agency to revise or revoke the declaration within 2 month.

Sunflower Student Movement

This movement is taken by an union of students and civic groups between the date of March 18th till April 10th of 2014 in the Legislative Yuan, expanding the protest later on to the Executive Yuan of Taiwan as well. The protest is on about the passing of the Cross Strait Service Trade Agreement by the current ruling party KuomingTang at the Legislative Yuan without clause-by-clause review.

The reason for such a aggressive movement first made by the students of Taiwan is because this trade treaty would hurt Taiwan’s economy and increase the political pressure from Mainland China, however the advocates of this treaty firmly believes that this would further increase Taiwan’s economy by increasing investments in the Chinese industry and even furthermore, if Taiwan suddenly decide to pull out from the treat, it will only damage the international credibility of Taiwan in the future. On 18th of March 2014, hundred of protesters occupied the legislative floor overnight, and they also made it clear that only if a clause by clause review of this agreement is made by the central government, they will occupy the legislature until March 21th which the Yuan has planned to vote on passing the Cross Straight Service Trade Agreement. Not to mention, this movement marked in the history for the first time that citizens have ever occupied the Legislative Yuan ever since the reform of the government status in the year of 1945.