Opposition parties in Taiwan's legislature have passed a controversial set of changes to Taiwan's highest court, the Constitutional Court. Under the new rules, more judges will need to be appointed to make rulings. But with a divided government, the changes could bring the court to a standstill.
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00:00Taiwan's legislature has voted for a second time to change rules to its highest court.
00:05Theoretically, this is the penultimate step to these amendments being officially adopted.
00:09The cabinet's veto has been overridden, and if adopted, Taiwan's constitutional court,
00:14its highest court, will need more justices to make rulings.
00:17The 15-member court currently only has eight sitting justices,
00:21and these amendments require at least nine justices to rule.
00:24Now that's controversial because Taiwan has a divided government.
00:27The executive branch is controlled by the Democratic Progressive Party,
00:31and the legislative branch is controlled by opposition Guomindang and Taiwan People's Party.
00:36So appointing new justices could be a slow process,
00:39effectively freezing the court's ability to act.
00:42Now the ruling DPP says this is exactly the opposition's plan,
00:46to gum up the system and freeze a court the opposition views as being biased against them.
00:51But opposition parties supporting the change say they're just carrying out
00:55their constitutional duty to fill the court and restore people's faith in the justice system.
01:26So you can see that this is a highly charged issue, and in recent weeks,
01:34we've seen fighting in the legislature and large protests,
01:37both tied to the passage of these amendments.
01:40Now with the second vote passed, the president must promulgate the law,
01:43and even if he doesn't, under Taiwan's constitutional system, the law will take effect
01:48anyway, though some debate has begun whether there might be exceptions to this rule.
01:52Lufei Li, Yixin Chen, and Chris Gorin for Taiwan Plus.