Legislative Yuan

The Legislative Yuan is the unicameral legislature of Republic of China, which ruled Mainland China prior to its retreat in 1949, located in Taipei. The Legislative Yuan is composed of 113 members, who are directly elected for four-year terms by people of the Taiwan area through a parallel voting system.
Originally located in Nanjing, the Legislative Yuan, along with the National Assembly and the Control Yuan, formed the tricameral parliament under the original 1947 Constitution. The Legislative Yuan previously had 760 members representing constituencies in all of China.
Until democratization, the Republic of China was an authoritarian state under the Dang Guo system. At the time, the Legislative Yuan functioned as a rubber stamp for the ruling regime of the Kuomintang.
Like parliaments or congresses of other countries, the Legislative Yuan is responsible for the passage of legislation, which is then sent to the president for signing. For these similarities, it is also common for people to refer to the Legislative Yuan as "the parliament".
Under the current amended Constitution, the Legislative Yuan, as the only parliamentary body, also holds the power to initiate several constitutional processes, including initiating constitutional amendments, recalls of the president, and impeachments of the president.

Composition

Legislators

Starting with the 2008 legislative elections, changes were made to the Legislative Yuan in accordance with a constitutional amendment passed in 2005. The Legislative Yuan has 113 members serving four-year terms; 73 members are elected by first-past-the-post, 6 reserved for indigenous candidates by single non-transferable vote, and 34 by party-list proportional representation. The current Legislative Yuan convened on February 1, 2024, and its term ends on January 31, 2028.
The five largest parties with three or more seats can form caucuses. If there are fewer than five such parties, legislators in other parties or with no party affiliation can form caucuses with at least four members.

Leadership

The president and vice president of the Legislative Yuan are elected by the 113 legislators during a preparatory session in the beginning of their 4-year terms. President and vice president of the Legislative Yuan sometimes translate to speaker and deputy speaker respectively in English.
The President is responsible for appointing the Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General of the Legislative Yuan, as well as other legislative staff, who are described as the Administrative Unit. The Vice President serves in place during the absence of the President.

Functions

Powers

Like legislatures of other countries, the Legislative Yuan holds the following power according to the current amended Constitution:

make laws and approve national budget, treaties, and emergency decrees issued by the president
review executive decrees
interpellation of government officials
initiate no-confidence votes against the Executive Yuan
approve appointments to the Examination Yuan, the Control Yuan, the grand justices, the auditor general, the public prosecutor general, the National Communications Commission, the Fair Trade Commission and the Central Election Commission,
initiate the recall of the president or the vice president, and the impeachment of the president or the vice president
initiate constitutional amendments, which must be referred to a referendum

Other governmental organs are authorized to propose legislative bills to the Legislative Yuan. Legislative bills proposed to the Legislative Yuan have to be cosigned by a certain number of legislators. Once a bill reaches the legislature, it is subject to a process of three readings.

Committees

Standing committees
* Internal Administration Committee
* Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee
* Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee
* Transportation Committee
* Education and Culture Committee
* Finance Committee
* Economics Committee
* Foreign and National Defense Committee
Ad hoc committees
* Procedure Committee
* Expenditure Examination Committee
* Constitutional Amendment Committee
* Discipline Committee
History

Constitutional theory

The concept of Legislative Yuan was introduced by Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People. The theory proposed a separation of powers into five branches. The Legislative Yuan, under Sun's political theory, is a branch of government elected by the National Assembly that serves as the standing legislative body when the National Assembly is not in session.
The legislators are to be elected through direct elections. In the constitution, Legislative Yuan, together with National Assembly and Control Yuan, form three chambers of a tricameral parliament according to the Judicial Yuan's interpretation number 76 of the Constitution.
However, the later constitutional amendments in the 1990s removed the parliamentary roles from National Assembly and Control Yuan and transferred them to the Legislative Yuan, which became an unicameral parliament.

Establishment and relocation to Taiwan

The original Legislative Yuan was formed in the original capital of Nanjing after the completion of the Northern Expedition. Its 51 members were appointed to a term of two years. The 4th Legislative Yuan under this period had its members expanded to 194, and its term in office was extended to 14 years because of the Second Sino-Japanese War. According to KMT political theory, these first four sessions marked the period of political tutelage.
The current Constitution of the Republic of China came into effect on 25 December 1947, and the first Legislative session convened in Nanjing on 18 May 1948, with 760 members. Six preparatory meetings had been held on 8 May 1948, during which Sun Fo and Chen Li-fu were elected president and vice president of the body. In 1949, mainland China fell to the Communist Party and the Legislative Yuan was transplanted to Taipei. On 24 February 1950, 380 members convened at the Sun Yat-sen Hall in Taipei.
The first Legislative Yuan was to have been elected for a term of three years ending in 1951; however, the fall of mainland China made it impossible to hold new elections. As a result, the Judicial Yuan decided that the members of the Legislative Yuan would continue to hold office until new elections could be held on the Mainland. This decision was made in the belief that the KMT would retake the Mainland in a short time. However, over the years, as the prospect of regaining the Mainland diminished, this meant that the legislators from mainland districts held their seats for life, in a one-party system. The body thus came to be called "the Non-reelected Congress".
Over the years, deceased members elected on the mainland were not replaced while additional seats were created for Taiwan starting with eleven seats in 1969. Fifty-one new members were elected to a three-year term in 1972, fifty-two in 1975, ninety-seven in 1980, ninety-eight in 1983, one hundred in 1986, and one hundred thirty in 1989. Although the elected members of the Legislative Yuan did not have the majority to defeat legislation, they were able to use the Legislative Yuan as a platform to express political dissent. Opposition parties were formally illegal until 1991, but in the 1970s candidates to the Legislative Yuan would run as Tangwai, and in 1985 candidates began to run under the banner of the Democratic Progressive Party.

Democratization

The members of the Legislative Yuan with extended terms remained until 31 December 1991, when as part of subsequent Judicial Yuan ruling they were forced to retire and the members elected in 1989 remained until the 161 members of the Second Legislative Yuan were elected in December 1992. The third LY, elected in 1995, had 157 members serving 3-year terms. The fourth LY, elected in 1998, was expanded to 225 members in part to include legislators from the abolished provincial legislature of Taiwan Province. The Legislative Yuan greatly increased its prominence after the 2000 presidential elections in Taiwan when the Executive Yuan and presidency was controlled by the Democratic Progressive Party while the Legislative Yuan had a large majority of Kuomintang members. The legislative elections in late 2001 produced a contentious situation in which the pan-blue coalition has only a thin majority over the governing pan-green coalition in the legislature, making the passage of bills often dependent on the votes of a few defectors and independents. Because of the party situation there have been constitutional conflicts between the Legislative Yuan and the executive branch over the process of appointment for the premier and whether the president has the power to call a special session.
Amid 70% public support, the Legislative Yuan voted 217–1 on 23 August 2004 for a package of amendments to:

Halve the number of seats from 225 to 113
Switch to a single-member district parallel voting electoral system
Increase the terms of members from 3 to 4 years, to synchronize the legislative and presidential elections.

The new electoral system installed in 2008 includes 73 plurality seats, 6 seats for aboriginals, with the remaining 34 seats to be filled from party lists. Every county has a minimum of 1 electoral district, thereby guaranteed at least one seat in the legislature, while half of the proportionally represented seats drawn from party lists must be women.
Additionally, the Legislative Yuan proposed to abolish the National Assembly. Future amendments would still be proposed by the LY by a three-fourths vote from a quorum of at least three-fourths of all members of the Legislature. After a mandatory 180-day promulgation period, the amendment would have to be ratified by an absolute majority of all eligible voters of the ROC irrespective of voter turnout. The latter requirement would allow a party to kill a referendum proposal by asking that their voters boycott the vote as was done by the KMT with the referendums associated with the 2004 presidential election.
A DPP proposal to allow the citizens the right to initiate constitutional referendums was pulled off the table, due to a lack of support. The proposal was criticized for dangerously lowering the threshold for considering a constitutional amendment. Whereas a three-fourths vote of the LY would require that any proposed constitutional amendment have a broad political consensus behind it, a citizen's initiative would allow a fraction of the electorate to force a constitutional referendum. It was feared that allowing this to occur would result in a referendum on Taiwan independence which would likely result in a crisis with the People's Republic of China.
The Legislative Yuan also proposed to give itself the power to summon the president for an annual "state of the nation" address and launch a recall of the president and vice president. The Legislative Yuan will also have the power to propose the impeachment of the president or vice president to the Council of Grand Justices.
An ad hoc National Assembly was elected and formed in 2005 to ratify the amendments. The downsized Legislative Yuan took effect after the 2008 elections.
On 20 July 2007, the Legislative Yuan passed a Lobbying Act.