National Legislative Assembly

“ Elections: elections for National Assembly in August 1978, Assembly chose President and Vice President in October 1978; constitutional reforms allow Assembly to elect from its own membership representatives comprising two-thirds of the primary legislative organ, the National Council on Legislation; the remaining one-third of the Council's 56 representatives was chosen in September 1980 by direct popular elections ”

“ At the first blush, there seems no earthly reason why the legislative business of the nation should not be got over during the day, or, at the outside, before the night were spent. The French Deputies, Conventionalists, or Representatives in the National Assembly, in their stormiest and most prolonged debates, seldom heard the chimes at midnight; and, ardent parliamentarians as are the Americans, it is only towards the immediate close of the session that Congress keeps for two or three days and nights a sort of Saturnalia of untimely sittings. ”

“ Besides, a legislative assembly, which is sure to be separated again, and its members soon return to private life, will feel its own interests, as well as duties, bound up with those of the community at large. ”

“ All persons, who immediately before the appointed day, are members of the Representative Body of Travancore or the Legislative Assembly of Cochin, shall on that day become members of the Legislative Assembly of the United State. ”

“ The president may, by resolution of the Executive Yuan Council, issue emergency decrees and take all necessary measures to avert imminent danger affecting the security of the state or of the people or to cope with any serious financial or economic crisis, the restrictions in Article 43 of the Constitution notwithstanding. However, such decrees shall, within 10 days of issuance, be presented to the Legislative Yuan for ratification. Should the Legislative Yuan withhold ratification, the said emergency decrees shall forthwith cease to be valid. ”

“ A political party shall be considered unconstitutional if its goals or activities endanger the existence of the Republic of China or the nation's free and democratic constitutional order.
The proposed budget submitted annually by the Judicial Yuan may not be eliminated or reduced by the Executive Yuan; however, the Executive Yuan may indicate its opinions on the budget and include them in the central government's proposed budgetary bill for submission to the Legislative Yuan for deliberation. ”

“ While in extreme cases there is no difficulty in deciding the question as to whether the practice of Congress determines the common parliamentary law, yet between these extremes there must necessarily be a large number of doubtful cases upon which there would be great difference of opinion, and to avoid the serious difficulties always arising from a lack of definiteness in the law, every deliberative assembly should imitate our legislative bodies in adopting Rules of Order for the conduct of their business. [1]
Plan of the Work. ”

“ While some of the rules of Congress are adapted only to legislative assemblies, and others only to the House that adopts them, yet its rules and practice, except where manifestly unsuited to ordinary deliberative assemblies, should, and do determine the parliamentary law of the country. The people of the United States will never accept the rules and practice of the legislature, or of deliberative assemblies, of any state, or even of any section of the country, as of equal authority with the practice of the National Congress in determining the parliamentary law for the whole country. ”

“ By the present constitution, you will see that no new law can be promulgated, unless decreed by the Legislative Body.
The votes in this assembly being taken by ballot, and the laws being enacted without any discussion, on the part of its members, on the plans debated before it by the orators of the Tribunate and of the government, it necessarily follows that the sittings present far less interest to strangers, than would result from an animated delivery of the opinion of a few leading orators. ”

“ It is, that in all Legislative Assemblies, the greater the number composing them may be, the fewer will be the men who will in fact direct their proceedings. In the first place, the more numerous any Assembly may be, of whatever characters composed, the greater is known to be the ascendency of passion over reason. ”

“ Constitutionally, the Grand National Assembly, as the highest voice of the people, is asserted to be the supreme organ of state power, and all other government bodies are theoretically subordinate to it. ”