| 監察院 Chien-cha Yuan | |
.svg) Emblem of the Control Yuan | |
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| Agency overview | |
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| Formed |
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| Preceding agency |
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| Dissolved | 1 October 1949 (mainland China) |
| Superseding agency | |
| Jurisdiction | Republic of China (Taiwan) |
| Status | Parliamentary institution suspended since 1993 |
| Headquarters | Zhongzheng District,Taipei 25°02′43″N121°31′12″E / 25.045278°N 121.52°E /25.045278; 121.52 |
| Agency executives | |
| Key document |
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| Website | www.cy.gov.tw |
Control Yuan 監察院 | |
|---|---|
| Type | |
| Type | |
| History | |
| Founded | 4 June 1948; 77 years ago (1948-06-04) |
| Disbanded | 1 February 1993; 33 years ago (1993-02-01) |
| Structure | |
| Seats | 178 |
Length of term | 6 years |
| Authority | Constitution of the Republic of China |
| Elections | |
| Indirect election | |
| Meeting place | |
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| Control Yuan Building,Taipei,Taiwan | |
.jpg) | |
| Constitution | |
| Constitution of the Republic of China | |
| Control Yuan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 監察院 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 监察院 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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TheControl Yuan is the supervisory andauditorybranch of the government of theRepublic of China, both during its time inmainland China andTaiwan.[1]
Designed as a hybrid ofauditor andombudsman byTaiwanese law, the Control Yuan holds the following powers:[2]
According to the currentConstitution, the Control Yuan shall consist of 29 members. One member shall be thePresident of the Control Yuan, and another shall be theVice President. All members, including the President and Vice President of Control Yuan, shall be nominated by thePresident of the Republic and approved byLegislative Yuan (the parliament ofTaiwan). Members serve with a term limit of six years.
Prior to constitutional reforms in the 1990s, the Control Yuan, along withNational Assembly (electoral college) and theLegislative Yuan (lower house) formed the nationaltricameral parliament. It functioned similarly to anupper house of a bicameral legislature, though it formed its own separate branch and was indirectly elected by provincial or municipal legislatures with 178 senators elected.[5]
The Control Yuan consists of a council with 29 members, including aPresident and aVice President and the National Audit Office. All 29 members and theauditor-general are nominated by thePresident of the Republic and approved byLegislative Yuan for 6-year terms. The incumbent 6th Control Yuan was nominated byPresidentTsai Ing-wen on June 22, 2020[6] and later confirmed byLegislative Yuan on July 17, 2020.[7] Members inaugurated on August 1, 2020, and their terms expire on July 31, 2026.
| President | Vice President |
|---|---|
| Chen Chu | Post Vacant |
| Members | |
| National Human Rights Commission members | Other members |
| 9 members | 17 members,1 seat vacant |
The council of the Yuan, chaired by the Yuan President, is divided into a number of committees to exercise the Yuan's supervision power. No member of the Control Yuan can hold another public office or profession while serving in the branch (according to Article 103 of the constitution), and members must be able to perform absent of partisan control or influence. Members can vote in no more than three committees and can join additional committees as non-voting members. Each committee can have up to 14 members and usually elects a convenor amongst themselves to chair committee meetings.
| Standing committees | Special committees |
|---|---|
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The following responsibilities were also assigned by various acts.
The National Human Rights Committee is a ten-member committee under the Control Yuan which investigates human rights abuses, proposes human rights laws, compiles an annual report and promotes human rights education. The President of the Control Yuan must be a member of the committee. The committee was established by the National Human Rights Committee Organic Law on 10 December 2019.[10]
An Administrative Appeal Committee, operated under the aegis of the Control Yuan but consisting of both members and non-members of the Control Yuan, considers administrative appeals which are inappropriate to both the Control Yuan proper and the Ministry of Audit.
The National Audit Office is headed by anauditor-general who is nominated by thePresident of the Republic and appointed with consent ofLegislative Yuan (parliament), exercises the Control Yuan's power of audit. It consists of five departments:
In addition, most local governments have established the Audit Divisions/Offices, these serve as the subordinate agencies of the National Audit Office. Currently, 21 local governments of the 22administrative divisions of Taiwan have Audit Divisions/Offices (exceptLienchiang County).
The Control Yuan is responsible to investigate possible violations onlaws and regulations ofpublic servants and raiseimpeachments if needed. Investigations are initiated by at least two members, and investigation committees must consist of at least nine members of the Control Yuan. The impeachment cases would be determined by a majority vote by members of investigation committee. Successful impeachment cases will then be forwarded to the Disciplinary Court (懲戒法院) under theJudicial Yuan for adjudication. However, the impeachment of thePresident orVice President shall be initiated byLegislative Yuan (parliament) and adjudicate by the Constitutional Court under theJudicial Yuan. Details regarding impeachment proceedings are stipulated in the Enforcement Rules of the Control Act.[11]
The concept of Control Yuan was introduced bySun Yat-sen'sThree Principles of the People. The theory proposed aseparation of powers into five branches (五院;wǔyuàn;gō͘-īⁿ).Sun Yat-sen demonstrated the benefit of separating the supervision and auditing power from thelegislature by the designation of the state organs of theImperial China. He quotes the long tradition of supervision used in past dynasties, ranging from theCensor (御史) established by theQin (秦) andHan (漢) dynasties to thetái (臺) andjiàn (諫) offices established under theSui (隋) andTang (唐) dynasties (tai were selected to supervise civil officials and military officers, whilejian were selected to counsel the emperor on supervisory matters) to the Board of Public Censors (都察院) selected under theMing (明) andQing (清) dynasties. Most of these offices also operated local and provincial branches to supervise local governments. Under theQing dynasty, the Board of Public Censors consisted of forty or fifty members, and two presidents, one ofManchu ancestry and the other ofHan Chinese ancestry.[18][19] They were, in theory, allowed to send one censor to participate in the meetings of all government boards. The Board's powers were minimized by the time of political flux which preceded the end of the Empire.
However, the 1947Constitution of the Republic of China has many influences from the resolutions of thePolitical Consultative Assembly held between the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang; KMT) and theChinese Communist Party.Carsun Chang, the major author of the Constitution draft in the Political Consultative Assembly, considered the fact that the supervision and auditing power is traditionally held by thelegislature, and also the proposal offederalism from theCommunist Party in the drafting process. He designed the Control Yuan to be achamber of parliament that isindirectly elected by theprovincial legislatures ofChina. The Control Yuan has some similarities to theUnited States Senate, which allocated a similar number of seats to eachprovince ofChina and holds the power to confirm many important public positions in theJudicial Yuan andExamination Yuan appointed by thePresident of the Republic.[20]
In the 1947 constitution, the Control Yuan, together withNational Assembly andLegislative Yuan, thus formed chambers of atricameral parliament according to theJudicial Yuan's interpretation number 76 of the Constitution in 1957.[21] The Control Yuan was given the power to request documents from other government agencies and investigate them for violations of law or neglect as underSun Yat-sen's ideology. Theauditor-general was considered elected by the Control Yuan, who shall be nominated by thePresident of the Republic with consent of theLegislative Yuan, who was responsible for submitting reports on government budgets.[22] Finally, the Control Yuan had confirmation power for the President, Vice President and members of theJudicial Yuan andExamination Yuan.[23][24]
In the earlyrepublican era, theBeiyang government was in favor of the traditional three-branch form ofseparation of powers. However, a weak culture ofrepublicanism and, later, theWarlord Era suppressed the implementation of this constitutional ideology.
After a successfulNorthern Expedition campaign, theKuomintang secured its leadership inChina and started to build theNationalist government according toSun Yat-sen's ideology. Five branches (Yuans) were created under theKuomintang'sparty-state administration. During this time, the Auditing Yuan (Chinese:審計院;pinyin:Shěnjì Yuàn) was established in February 1928, but in February 1931, the Control Yuan was established and the Auditing Yuan was downgraded to the current ministry-level National Audit Office within the Control Yuan.[25] The creation of Control Yuan on 16 February 1931 was the last establishment of the five-Yuans.[26]
However, the 1947Constitution of the Republic of China, although retaining the architecture of the five-branch government, changed the Control Yuan to be aparliamentchamber. Under the constitution, members of the Yuan (by now senatorsde facto) were elected from regionallegislatures: 5 from eachprovince, 2 from eachdirect-administered municipality, 8 fromMongolia (by 1948 only the Inner Mongolian provinces were represented), 8 fromTibet, and 8 from theoverseas Chinese communities. As originally envisioned both thePresident andVice President of the Control Yuan were to be elected by and from the members like thespeaker of many otherparliamentary bodies worldwide. Following thepromulgation of theConstitution, the 178 first Control Yuan senators elected by the regionallegislatures convened inNanking on June 4, 1948, for the opening of their chamber.[25] The first Control Yuan then confirmed the leaders and members of the firstJudicial Yuan andExamination Yuan. The transition fromone-party stateNationalist government toconstitutional government was hence completed.
However, a year later, theKuomintang-ledgovernment of the Republic of China lost theChinese Civil War andretreated toTaiwan in December 1949.Taiwan had beenunder Japanese rule before August 15, 1945; as a result ofWorld War II, theRepublic of ChinaArmed Forces occupiedTaiwan on behalf of theAllies. The government establishedTaiwan Province to mark its annexation ofTaiwan. There were 104 members who retreated to Taiwan with the government, including 5 senators from Taiwan. The Control Yuan occupied the former governmental building ofTaihoku Prefecture in theJapanese era. The term of the retreated senators was extended indefinitely until "re-election is possible in their originalelectoral district." During this era, the first Control Yuan members continued to conduct sessions inTaipei until they were ordered to retire by theJudicial Yuan (Constitutional Court) in 1991.
With the reduction of members due to age, elections were held from 1969 to 1986 to elect new senators to the Yuan from Taiwan, and the cities of Taipei and Kaoshung were soon represented.
Until 1993, the Control Yuan's legislative work was limited to helping to audit the national budget, which would then be presented to the Legislative Yuan. The other actions the then chamber took were its impeachment, confirmation and censure powers, applied whenever necessary.
Democratization took place inTaiwan starting late 1980s; the movement resulted in a series ofconstitutional amendment known as theAdditional Articles of the Constitution. On May 27, 1992, the second amendment removed the Control Yuan fromparliamentchambers and its members removed from their legislative duties. Decision process of leaders and members of the Control Yuan follows a similar pattern ofJudicial Yuan andExamination Yuan. These officials were nominated by thePresident of the Republic and confirmation by theNational Assembly. TheNational Assembly was anotherparliamentchamber that can hold the confirmation process to maintain theseparation of powers.[27]
On 18 July 1997, by the 4thconstitutional amendment, the procedure toimpeach thePresident andVice President of the Republic was transferred out from the Control Yuan. In this amendment, presidential impeachment shall be initiated byLegislative Yuan and voted by theNational Assembly.[28] However, the later political developments inTaiwan has inclined to simplify theparliament toone chamber. TheLegislative Yuan was the surviving chamber and theNational Assembly was then abolished.[29] Since 25 April 2000, confirmation of leaders and members of the Control Yuan are transferred toLegislative Yuan, together with the confirmation of similar officials ofJudicial Yuan andExamination Yuan.[30]
At the end of 2004,PresidentChen Shui-bian sent a list of nominees to positions in the Control Yuan to theLegislative Yuan for approval. The coalition ofKuomintang andPeople First Party, which then held a majority in the Legislative Yuan, refused to ratify President Chen's nominees and demanded that he submit a new list. The political deadlock that resulted stopped the Control Yuan from functioning from February 2005 to July 2008. The situation resolved afterKuomintang's candidateMa Ying-jeou was elected as thePresident in2008 Taiwanese presidential election andKuomintang won thesupermajority of Legislative Yuan seats in2008 Taiwanese legislative election. Mr.Wang Chien-shien was then appointed to be its president under theMa Ying-jeou administration.
In 2016,Democratic Progressive Party's candidateTsai Ing-wen was elected as thePresident in2016 Taiwanese presidential election andDemocratic Progressive Party won the majority of Legislative Yuan seats in2016 Taiwanese legislative election. On 10 December 2019, theLegislative Yuan passed the National Human Rights Committee Organic Law (國家人權委員會組織法), which established the National Human Rights Committee under the Control Yuan. Its duties include investigating human rights abuses, proposing human rights laws, compiling an annual report, and educational promotion of human rights, in accordance with theParis Principles.[31] The committee will consist of 10 members, one of which is the President of the Control Yuan who heads the committee.[10] It launched on August 1, 2020, with former democracy activistChen Chu as president.[32]Kuomintang memberJustin Huang was discussed as a potential vice-president, but he declined the position after receiving criticism from both the KMT for crossing party lines without consultation and the DPP for his role in the construction of theTaitung Miramar Resort while he was county magistrate, for which the county government was censured by the Control Yuan.[33][34]
In June 2025, an amendment to theAdditional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China sponsored byHuang Kuo-chang (TPP) andLo Chih-chiang (KMT) was formally submitted to abolish the Control Yuan.[35]
TheKuomintang-ledgovernment of the Republic of Chinaretreated toTaiwan in 1949, the year following the elections after the enactment of the 1947 constitution. As theKuomintang government continues to claim sovereignty overmainland China, the term limit of the original Members of the Control Yuan was extended until "re-election is possible in their originalelectoral districts." In response to the increasing democracy movement inTaiwan, limited supplementary elections were held in theFree Area (Taiwan) starting 1969. Members elected in these supplementary elections served together with those who were elected in 1948. This situation remained until a Constitutional Court (Judicial Yuan) ruling on June 21, 1991, that ordered the retirement of all members with extended terms by the end of 1991.[37]
| Term | Length | Actual length | Election/Appointment | Seats | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Initially 6 years, then limit removed by Temporary Provisions | Jun 4, 1948－Jan 31, 1993 (SeeNote column for detailed terms) | 1947－48 elections | 178 | The only election held inmainland China. 5 seats were elected inTaiwan. 104 membersretreated to Taiwan with thegovernment; served until the end of 1991. |
| 1969 supp | 2 | Elected inTaipei, terms equal to the 1948-elected members | |||
| 1973 1st supp | 15 | Elected inTaiwan with 6-year terms; then extended to 8 years | |||
| 1980 2nd supp | 32 | Elected inTaiwan with 6-year terms | |||
| 1987 3rd supp | 32 | Elected inTaiwan with 6-year terms; served until Jan 31, 1993 | |||
| 2nd | 6 years | Feb 1, 1993－Jan 31, 1999 | Presidential nomination with National Assembly confirmation | 29 | Changed to a non-parliamentary institution; elections stopped |
| 3rd | Feb 1, 1999－Jan 31, 2005 | ||||
| 4th | Aug 1, 2008－Jul 31, 2014 | Presidential nomination with Legislative Yuan confirmation | Vacancy due toLegislative Yuan's refusal to initiate the confirmation process | ||
| 5th | Aug 1, 2014－Jul 31, 2020 | ||||
| 6th | Aug 1, 2020－Jul 31, 2026 | Incumbent |
Timeline of Control Yuan elections and terms
The President and Vice President of the Control Yuan in theNationalist government era were appointed by theKuomintang (Nationalist Party).
| President | Vice President |
|---|---|
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The Control Yuan was achamber ofparliament under the 1947Constitution of the Republic of China. The President and Vice President of the Control Yuan were elected by and from the members like thespeaker of many otherparliamentary bodies.
| Order | Date | President | Vice President | Note | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jun 9, 1948–Jan 6, 1954 | Yu Yu-jen | 于右任 | Liu Che | 劉哲 | Inaugurated inNanking and moved toTaipei |
| Jan 7, 1954–Aug 17, 1954 | Post vacant | Vice President Liu Che died in office | ||||
| Aug 18, 1954–Jul 11, 1957 | Liang Shang-tung | 梁上棟 | ||||
| Jul 12, 1957–Apr 11, 1958 | Post vacant | Vice President Liang Shang-tung died in office | ||||
| Apr 12, 1958–Nov 9, 1964 | Li Shih-tsung | 李嗣璁 | ||||
| Nov 10, 1964–Aug 16, 1965 | Vice President as Acting President | PresidentYu Yu-jen died in office | ||||
| 2 | Aug 17, 1965–May 14, 1972 | Li Shih-tsung | 李嗣璁 | Chang Wei-han | 張維翰 | |
| May 15, 1972–Mar 18, 1973 | Vice President as Acting President | President Li Shih-tsung died in office | ||||
| 3 | Mar 19, 1973–Mar 23, 1981 | Yu Chun-hsien | 余俊賢 | Chou Pai-lien | 周百鍊 | |
| Mar 24, 1981–Mar 11, 1987 | Huang Tzuen-chiou | 黃尊秋 | ||||
| 4 | Mar 12, 1987–Dec 29, 1991 | Huang Tzuen-chiou | 黃尊秋 | Ma Kung-chun | 馬空群 | |
| Dec 30, 1991–Feb 19, 1992 | Post vacant | Vice President Ma Kung-chun retired at end of 1991 | ||||
| Feb 20, 1992–Jan 31, 1993 | Lin Rong-san | 林榮三 | ||||
Since the 1992 ratification of theconstitutional amendment, the Control Yuan was reorganized from a chamber ofparliament to an independent agency that still performs most of its designated constitutional powers. Since the 4th term, the President and Vice President of the Control Yuan, together with other members, were nominated by thePresident of the Republic and approved by theLegislative Yuan (the now-unicameral parliament ofTaiwan).
| Term | Date | President | Vice President | Note | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2nd | Feb 1, 1993–Sep 22, 1995 | Chen Li-an | 陳履安 | Cheng Shuei-chih | 鄭水枝 | |
| Sep 23, 1995–Aug 31, 1996 | Vice President as Acting President | President Chen Li-an resigned to run for1996 Taiwanese presidential election | ||||
| Sep 1, 1996–Jan 31, 1999 | Wang Tso-yung | 王作榮 | ||||
| 3rd | Feb 1, 1999–Jan 31, 2005 | Fredrick Chien | 錢復 | Cheng Meng-lin | 陳孟鈴 | |
| N/a | Feb 1, 2005–Jul 31, 2008 | Post vacant | Post vacant | Vacant due toExecutive-Legislative conflict | ||
| 4th | Aug 1, 2008–Jul 31, 2014 | Wang Chien-shien | 王建煊 | Chen Jinn-lih | 陳進利 | |
| 5th | Aug 1, 2014–Jul 31, 2020 | Chang Po-ya | 張博雅 | Sun Ta-chuan | 孫大川 | |
| 6th | Aug 1, 2020–present | Chen Chu | 陳菊 | Lee Hung-chun | 李鴻鈞 | Vice presidency vacant from Aug 1, 2020 to May 30, 2022 |
| Country | Agency |
|---|---|
 Brazil | Federal Court of Accounts |
 People's Republic of China | National Supervisory Commission (国家监察委员会) |
 European Union | European Court of Auditors |
 Israel | State Comptroller (מבקר המדינה,مراقب الدولة) |
 Japan | Board of Audit (会計検査院) |
 Philippines | Office of the Ombudsman andCommission on Audit |
 South Korea (ROK) | Board of Audit and Inspection (Korean: 감사원;Hanja: 監査院) |
 United Kingdom | National Audit Office |
 United States | Government Accountability Office |
 Legislatures of theRepublic of China (Taiwan) | |||||
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| Special municipalities | |||||
| Provinces (streamlined) |
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Notable former parliamentary body:National Assembly andTaiwan Provincial Consultative Council was abolished.Control Yuan was transformed to a non-parliamentary institution. | |||||
