In a modern democratic constitution. It is intriguing to ask, what kind of government structure that we have. In Taiwan's context, we do have our government, a democratic government and this government is known for what we call five power government. What five powers are we talking about? Five branches of the government in the constitution? Yes, indeed, we are talking exactly about that. In 1946 ROC Constitution, it specified five powers for the government. Of course, beyond the executive power, Legislature and judiciary. There are two interesting powers, including what we call control power and examination power we call that branches of course. But in Chinese call that YUAN, we spell that YUAN, lots of people can't recognize this word and it means YUAN. So we have judicial yuan, executive yuan, control yuan. So these are yuan. This is equivalent prove political branches in modern democratic constitution. Is five power a good design? Well, this is a design by dr Sun Yat sen. He has a very romantic idea that is, in traditional China, you have that ombudsman. So he thought that we should put control yuan into the government of the constitution. And he believed that examination, particularly the neutrality and credibility of examination system has been going on since ancient Chinese. So you like to have examination yuan independent from other branches of government. So we have five branches of the government. Good or bad? Well, Taiwan is the only country in the world who can experience these five powers. And I'm here to say yes, there are problems. Not always good, not always beauty behind that, what we call institutional innovation. Well try to think, in your family you have three person, three individuals and of course you have to deal with the personality of each individuals. But primary you need to deal with three bilateral relations. But imagine your family reach to five members. Only add two members. But the bilateral relations increase from three not to five. But to 10, so you have that 10 bilateral relations to deal with. Imagine a constitution need to deal with the competence disputes among and between political branches. And you have five branches to take care of, 10 bilateral relations. Here are some cases for you, let's say for example, in Taiwan control yuan is equivalent to an ombudsman. Maybe another country ombudsman It's just one institution, has nothing to do with so called political branches in the constitution. But in Taiwan control yuan is one Branch of five powers. So any dispute relating to control yuan becomes a constitutional disputes. So there were one disputes happening in the past when Taiwan has the first regime change. President Chen Shui-Bian of DPP nominate a group of people to sit in control yuan as members of the control yuan. But then KMT or Pan-Blue control legislature, refused to approve, not reject, but refused to deliberate and talk about that, even handle that issue, resulting in the constitutional dispute and resolution in the constitutional court. That's what we call Constitutional Interpretation number 632. In this interpretation, our grand justice strongly believe that every political branches of the constitution beard some obligation to honor the integrity of the whole constitution. So while President has the power to nominate members of the control yuan, it's up to the legislature to approve that. You can choose to reject after deliberation. But when you reject to exercise their power, the Constitutional Court believed you are abusing your power. So you have that kind of bilateral relations among political branches. And let me just mention the other example, which is once again, you will be astonished in the trajectory of Taiwan's constitutional development. There used to be what we call three parliaments. Again, what are you talking about? Three parliaments? You may have two chambers nice senate or house, but you have three parliaments. That was because Taiwan not only have five branches of the government in the constitution, also have a, what we call National Assembly. National Assembly is for the election of the president and also to revise the constitution. So what happened was in Chiang Kai-shek period back to so many decades, the Federation of parliamentarians send the invitation letter to Taiwan to our legislature, actually requesting for participation in the forum and then control yuan, national assembly and legislature, they all believed they should go. So there is a dispute and waiting for the president, President Chiang Kai-shek to handle the issue. President Chiang kai shek hand the issue to the judiciary for grant justice to resolve this hot potato. It's really a hot potato, so hot that the judiciary immediately say these three institutions are all equivalent to the parliament in modern democracies, you see. So we used to have three parliaments and since then all the representatives from these three institutions or enjoy the privilege of the parliamentarian. Is that a good thing? Well, it's hard to say, but once you have a government structure that is so divided divided into five, not only five, if you take the National assembly and the presidency into account, then you have a very complex interaction constitutionally. Unluckily, we have gone through all of these and now Taiwan is now what we call semi presidentialism. Semi presidentialism means that the government structure is pretty close to a presidential system. Well, but not quite, we still have a premier. So we have a premier is the head of the government, but at the same time we have a directly elected president, just like president in the United States. The president got elected through popular vote and this direct presidential election was, the system was established in 1994, resulting in the first direct presidential election in 1996. There was a Chinese missile exercise across Taiwan strait protesting against Taiwan's direct presidential election. Nevertheless Taiwan's presidential system evolved into a different plateau that Taiwan become a semi presidential system with strong presidential power, while at the same time has to interact with the cabinet and the still five powers constitutional structure. So we call that semi presidentialism. Aside from that, we also found that National Assembly while electing the president and at the same time revised the constitution then people found that system was not appropriate, particularly when people have to take part in major issues like constitutional revision. So in 2005 Constitutional revision, national plan very was abolished. So now the system is a little bit straightforward than what it was before, but still it's still kept the same system as five powers. There is a chance that the constitution will be revised again. When the constitution is going to be revised, several issues could be on the agenda including the voting age of the general public, whether we are going to lower that from 20 years old to 18 years old. But there are other issues and particularly nowadays people argue about whether we should actually abolish control yuan and examination yuan put their function in other institutions like an independent commission or something like that. So there is still a possibility that is five powers government structure will be changed in the next wrong of constitutional revision. But as we will talk about in data section constitutional revision process in Taiwan right now is so difficult. So it won't be easy, but it doesn't mean it's impossible. It would take supermajority congressional vote and public referendum to do that. Lastly, let's talk a little bit about referendum. While we are embracing this parliamentary democracy, we have a functioning parliament, but at the same time, people hope they can exercise their direct democracy through both. So yes, in Taiwan we have a popular referendum law dealing with the direct participation from the citizen about public Policy formation in the past in 2,004, 2008. Now referendums in conjunction with presidential elections. But those who are not very, very successful as people still argue about the necessity and the integrity of those referendum. And then in last local election, the referendum was implemented in the more comprehensive way 10 issues was put into the ballot in conjunction with a comprehensive local elections, resulting in a little bit chaotic. That was the first time that you have so many referendum issues for citizens to exercise. Only one hand is good citizen exercise their direct vote on public policy. But at the same time, you need to combine with major election, so how to improve the electoral management is now headache for the government. But in any way promote direct democracy in conjunction with representative democracy is the value and also the direction for Taiwan's constitutional reform. In year 1992 Taiwan's Parliament become the parliament chosen by Taiwanese people. Before that, the representatives were all from China and they continue to exercise their authority for more than 30 years. So we call them, at that time people always like to call them all thieves and now after one constitutional interpretation, that is constitutional interpretation 261 and also students get in front of Chiang kai shek monument chunking for reform at the time. President Lee Dong Wei received the leader of the student and come up with the general plan for reform, including abolish the period of mobilization. And also including the termination of the decade long congress setting the plate or platform for reform and that set the stage for the new congress. Right now in summary, Taiwan people can elect their president and routinely elect their parliamentarian and also at the same time care about public policy through referendum and also participation in administrative, legislative processes. And this is what we care about, and this is what democracy is about. This is the current government structure of Taiwan through a long process of evolution that stop here. And we have a new section to cover on the follow up issues.
