Taiwan premier will not receive September salary as lawmaker freezes pay

Taiwan Premier Cho Jung-tai is set to receive no salary for September after Kuomintang lawmaker Weng Hsiao-ling froze his pay from September through December, according to the report.

Government employees receive their salaries at the beginning of each month, so Cho’s September payment was expected on Sept. 1. It reportedly will not be deposited.

Media commentator Chan Ling-yu criticized Weng in a Facebook post, arguing that the situation was contradicted by Constitutional Interpretation No. 601. The ruling said the legislature could not use its budget powers to alter the legally defined compensation of another constitutional institution. It also said lawmakers could cut their own allowances and expenses as a form of self-restraint.

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The only people whose salaries the legislature can legally cut under the Constitution are lawmakers themselves.

Chan argued that lawmakers’ own compensation is therefore the only pay that the legislature can constitutionally reduce. He said freezing the premier’s statutory salary went against the interpretation, while Weng’s own salary would be the lawful target for a cut under that principle.

Chan further described the pay of political officials as a legally required expenditure and said the premier, as a constitutionally designated head of an institution, did not receive his salary at the legislature’s discretion. He said the Sept. 1 nonpayment could open the way to a constitutional interpretation request or an administrative lawsuit.

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This is no longer political maneuvering. It is holding the constitutional system hostage through a budget bill.