Opposition to Handling Legal Issues Regarding Grand Justice Qualification Screening Through Political Means

The Legislative Yuan is currently conducting the review and consent procedure for Grand Justices of the Judicial Yuan. Several legislators have advocated for conducting party-to-party negotiations and votes on the qualifications of nominees Lin Tzu-i and Hsu Yu-hsiu. The Alliance for Citizen Supervision of Grand Justices, the Taiwan Association for Feminist Studies, and Awakening Foundation express deep concern over the current plan to address the qualification screening of Grand Justices—a matter involving law and right—through party negotiations or potentially even a vote.

Nominees Lin Tzu-i and Hsu Yu-hsiu were nominated pursuant to Article 4, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 3 of the Judicial Yuan Organization Act, which stipulates "those who have served as a professor of major legal subjects in a university for more than ten years and have specialized publications." Because the Act does not further specify the baseline time point for determining whether the requirement of having served as a professor for ten years is met, legal doubts have been raised regarding whether the two individuals meet the nomination qualifications. Although a literal interpretation of the aforementioned provision yields no immediate conclusion and indeed constitutes a legislative loophole, examining the provisions of other laws in our country seems to allow for a reasonable interpretive result to be indirectly deduced. For example, the Organic Act of the Control Yuan stipulates that the baseline time point for determining the qualifications of Control Yuan member nominees shall be the time of their assumption of office; while the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act and the Public Officials Election and Recall Act similarly set the day before the polling day as the baseline time point for fulfilling candidate qualification requirements. Based on this, it does not seem difficult to conclude that there remains considerable room for interpretation regarding the aforementioned provision of the Judicial Yuan Organization Act, and it does not necessarily have to be the time of nomination. Even setting aside provisions of similar laws, according to fundamental principles of legal interpretation, an interpretation favorable to the parties concerned should be adopted, rather than applying the strictest interpretation method—namely, the time of nomination—to interpret the aforementioned provision.

Although the Legislative Yuan may advocate for returning the President's nominations following party negotiations, in theory the President could make a supplementary nomination of nominees Lin Tzu-i and Hsu Yu-hsiu at any time or even immediately. If this scenario materializes, the Legislative Yuan would still have no reason not to conduct a review and exercise its consent power. It is truly unimaginable what substantive meaning other than highlighting political confrontation could be served by the Legislative Yuan's current practice of returning the nominations and declining to exercise its consent power.

The amendment of the Judicial Yuan Organization Act is inherently within the purview of the Legislative Yuan, and patching the aforementioned omission in the qualification provisions for Grand Justice nominees should be the responsibility of the Legislative Yuan. We deeply regret why the Legislative Yuan did not amend the law in a timely manner back then to eliminate this unnecessary controversy. We also disapprove of the Legislative Yuan's approach: after deciding not to review Grand Justice nominees in the previous session, it failed to actively inspect and deliberate on the qualifications of each Grand Justice nominee and raise questions and clarifications in a timely manner, instead dragging this out until now and deciding to resolve the matter through political means.

What is even more baffling is that despite the Legislative Yuan considering the qualifications of nominees Lin Tzu-i and Hsu Yu-hsiu to be questionable, it nevertheless proceeded in accordance with the scheduled agenda on the morning of the 12th to review nominees Lin Tzu-i and Hsu Yu-hsiu, inviting the two nominees to take the podium for self-introductions and to answer questions. In reality, this already constitutes a substantive review of the two nominees. According to legal principles, this is tantamount to having agreed, through the progression of the aforementioned substantive procedures, to acknowledge that the qualification requirements of the two individuals have been remedied. Otherwise, it is truly difficult to understand the rationale for the Legislative Yuan continuing to conduct a substantive review while simultaneously questioning whether the nominees meet the procedural requirements of qualification.

We oppose the improper intervention of political force in the Grand Justice review and consent procedure. Especially during the process of exercising the Grand Justice consent power—where the ruling and opposition parties have vowed not to enforce party discipline nor mobilize Class-A alerts—deciding to handle the legal issue of Grand Justice qualification determination through political means is fundamentally no different from enforcing party discipline and mobilizing Class-A alerts in its political implications, which is unacceptable. We eagerly hope that the Legislative Yuan can pull back from the brink and avoid leaving a stain on the process of exercising consent this time.