The Fifth Legislative Yuan came to an end yesterday after an all-night marathon. The political fallout of the presidential and legislative elections meant this legislature was rife with inter-party opposition, boycotts and deadlock, and it is difficult to be satisfied with the quality of debate or the efficiency of the legislative process.
Although the legislature met for 28 hours on its final day, many bills were still left unattended to. Only 56 bills were passed during the whole session. Neither the organic law of the Executive Yuan (
Since a legislative session cannot be extended, the next legislature must start anew, and society as a whole must pay the price for the postponement of reforms. Such lack of efficiency is unacceptable in a modern society.
One bill that was passed earlier in the session was the controversial March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Statute" (
Then there was the legislature's refusal to review and confirm nominees to the Control Yuan, a move that violates the Constitution and the duties of legislators. It means that the Control Yuan will not be formed within the legally stipulated time, and this still has to be dealt with.
In terms of budget scrutiny, opposition legislators obstructed and voted down requests to include the NT$610.8 billion special arms budget in the legislative agenda. This will not only demoralize the military but is detrimental to national security. The international community will be right to be skeptical of our determination to defend ourselves if law-makers are reluctant to purchase advanced weapons. This could further strain relations with Washington.
As the political stalemate between the governing and opposition parties remains, the opposition abused their legislative majority by slashing the government's annual revenue request by NT$110 billion, almost causing a budget deficit of NT$70 billion. Thanks to the timely intervention of Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jing-pyng (
The deliberate obstruction by the opposition parties of the budget will cause the deficit to grow and will affect the privatization of state-run enterprises. Even more vicious is the retaliatory manner in which the government and opposition approached the budget.
Because the pan-blue legislators were unhappy with the grand justices ruling on the 319 committee, they revoked the professional payment for judges listed in the budget. The Government Information Office's miscellaneous funds were also rejected because broadcasting channels are to be restructured. There was even a rumor that four lawmakers facing charges of electoral fraud had offered to support various budget allocations if the charges were dropped.
The government, the lawmakers and society are all losers with the closing of the Fifth Legislative Yuan. Hopefully President Chen Shui-bian (
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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