Yesterday, the legislative caucus of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) called for a Legislative Yuan temporary session. This was because of the fact that the current session will be over by Tuesday, yet many important bills remain buried in the Legislative Yuan, some without even a chance of getting placed on the agenda for a first reading.
According to DPP caucus whip Lai Ching-te (
This has apparently become a routine for the Legislative Yuan -- to be so seriously behind with its real work, namely reviewing and deliberating bills, that by the end of each session there is typically a debate about whether to hold a temporary session to do some major catching-up work.
The seriousness of the problem was reflected by Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) more than a week ago. Regarding the People First Party's (PFP) refusal to re-open negotiations between the political parties' legislative caucuses, Hsieh had indicated that lawmakers are "civil servants" to whom such negotiations are a matter of "duty" rather than a right, and that lawmakers have no right to "strike" in such a manner.
Indeed, the nation's taxpayers should be upset about the inefficiency and the neglect of duties by our lawmakers. They seem to have forgotten what their real job is and spend most of their time getting distracted by their "extracurricular activities."
Just look at how many pan-blue lawmakers joined Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) on their lavish tours to China, while dust collected on the bills waiting to be enacted in the Legislative Yuan. This is not to mention the fact that many lawmakers are spending most of their time seeking nomination by their parties in the upcoming mayoral and county-commissioner elections. Even Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) himself has been pre-occupied by his race for the KMT chairmanship.
At the same time, the list of major bills that desperately need the due attention of the lawmakers are getting longer.
Then there is President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) nomination list for Control Yuan members, which fares no better -- namely that it has not been placed on the deliberation agenda by the procedure committee. This demonstrates the malice driving the opposition camp, since they could at least have reviewed the list and then simply vote against nominees they disagree with. But no, they don't even want to take a serious look at the list. As a result, the Control Yuan has been literally empty since February.
Other important bills on the waiting list include the statute governing the 2008 Taiwan Expo (2008台灣博覽會), draft amendments to the Organic Law of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織條例) and the NT$90 billion budget for the 10 Major Construction Projects.
It is truly appalling to hear legislative caucus whip Chen Chih-pin (
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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