"National Assembly

The National Assembly (abbreviated as “National Assembly”) is the highest governing body of the Republic of China, which has ceased to function, and its powers have now been transferred to the people of the Republic of China or to other institutions. According to the Constitution of the Republic of China enacted in 1946, the National Assembly is the highest authority among the five branches of government, exercising political power on behalf of the national citizens. After the relocation of the Republic of China government to Taiwan in 1949, the National Assembly continued to operate in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu until the amendment of the Constitution of the Republic of China in 2005, which froze all provisions related to the National Assembly.

In the original text of the Constitution of the Republic of China, the National Assembly is composed of representatives (referred to as “National Assembly delegates” or “National Representatives”). Its most important function is to elect the President and Vice President of the Republic of China, similar to the Electoral College in the United States at that time or the Supreme Soviet in the Soviet Union. Later, similar representative legislative institutions were established, such as the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the National Congress for New Politics during the presidency of Park Chung-hee in South Korea.

Legally, although the original text of the Constitution of the Republic of China has not been amended, according to the amendments made by the Republic of China government after its relocation to Taiwan, half of the constitutional text has ceased to be applicable. However, since the validity period of the amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of China is before national unification, relevant laws such as the “Organic Act of the National Assembly,” “Act on the Exercise of Powers of the National Assembly,” and “Act on the Exercise of Consent Power of the National Assembly” related to the National Assembly have not been abolished. Therefore, the National Assembly is in a frozen and suspended state rather than being abolished. After the National Assembly was frozen, in March 2012, the 8th session of the Legislative Yuan proposed the abolition of the aforementioned three laws by the Taiwan Solidarity Union parliamentary group, but it was not completed due to the principle of discontinuity of the term.

The National Assembly was proposed by Sun Yat-sen. In the design of the Constitution of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen believed that 「政」 is the affairs of the people, and 「治」 is management. 「政治」 refers to the management of the affairs of the people. Accordingly, he divided the functions of the government into political power and administrative power. The people have four types of political power: election, recall, initiative, and final decision. The administrative power is exercised by the five Yuan (Executive Yuan, Legislative Yuan, Judicial Yuan, Examination Yuan, Control Yuan), which provide necessary assistance to the people. Among them, the central political power of supervising the government, territorial sovereignty, and amending the constitution is exercised by the National Assembly, and the constitutional level of the National Assembly is placed above the five Yuan. In this way, the people exercise political power through the representatives elected to the National Assembly in central agencies, thereby controlling the administrative power of the government. This achieves a balance between political power and administrative power, ensuring that the rights and interests of the people are not infringed upon by the government, and the people can enjoy all the functions provided by the government.

Guo Hongcheng believes that the National Assembly is a political institution planned by Sun Yat-sen, representing popular sovereignty. They entrust specialized personnel to form the Legislative Yuan and carry out legislation. It involves the theory of the National Assembly representing the people in exercising political power and differentiating powers. Taiwanese scholars such as Li Hongxi and others believe that this system is close to democratic centralism. Li Bingnan believes that Sun Yat-sen’s ideas about the National Assembly were influenced by the Soviet Union’s Soviet system, where both the National Assembly and Soviet were the highest organs of state power."

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