President Lai signs Constitutional Court bill into law

Taipei, Jan. 23 (CNA) Measures adopted by the Legislature to raise the thresholds for Constitutional Court rulings will take effect on Saturday after being promulgated by President Lai Ching-te (賴清德).

In a press release on Thursday, Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said Lai had signed the amendments to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act into law.

Per Taiwanese law, the amendments will take effect on Saturday, three days after the promulgation.

Kuo cited the president as saying the measures risked disrupting the Constitutional Court operations, usurping the judicial authorities' powers and undermining the principle of separation of powers among government branches.

Lai is calling for a Constitutional Court ruling on the constitutionality of the amendments, the spokesperson added.

The announcement came about a week after the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus petitioned the Constitutional Court to seek an injunction to halt enforcement of the measures and a judgment to have them revoked.

The DPP took the action shortly after lawmakers from the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People's Party (TPP), who together have a majority in the Legislature, upheld the measures they had previously pushed through in a revote requested by the Cabinet.

However, with the new measures requiring a minimum of 10 justices to hear and rule on a case, it remains unclear whether the Constitutional Court, which normally has 15 justices but currently has only eight, can review such a case.

Lai previously nominated seven candidates to replace those whose eight-year terms ended on Oct. 31, 2024, but all were rejected by the Legislature later that year.

As of now, the president has yet to select new nominees.

According to another new measure, a ruling declaring an existing legal provision unconstitutional must also be backed by at least nine justices.

The amendments reversed previous rules that only mandated the presence of at least two-thirds of all sitting justices, with a ruling determined by a simple majority vote.

The amendments have been criticized by the DPP and several civil society groups as an attempt by the opposition to immobilize the Constitutional Court, which primarily handles petitions from the public but also intervenes in disputes among top government bodies.

KMT and TPP lawmakers, on the other hand, have defended the revisions, arguing they would ensure more rigorous reviews by the Constitutional Court and that a minimum attendance requirement would prevent future cases from being decided by only a handful of justices.