Tue, Jun 07, 2005 page3

• Amendment package opponents create delays in first sitting

  • By Ko Shu-ling / STAFF REPORTER
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  The first sitting of the National Assembly was stalled for more than two and a half hours yesterday as party representatives voiced their opinions on the constitutional amendments amid bickering and protests.

  All 12 political parties and civic leagues with seats in the assembly were slated to speak at a forum yesterday to express their stance on the constitutional amendments.

  Each representative was allowed seven minutes to explain his or her party's views on the amendment package.

  

  Yen Kun-chuan, center, a National Assembly member from the Democratic Action Alliance, is stopped by a National Assembly employee as he jumps over the recorder's desk to protest the confiscation of a crane he forced onto the premises at Chungshan Hall, where the assembly is meeting.

  PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES

  The number of delegates was allocated in proportion to the seats each party or alliance has in the assembly. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) each had six representatives, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and People First Party (PFP) each had three. Groups with less than five assembly seats had only one representative.

  The DPP, however, decided to pass on the forum, saying it had already made clear its support for the amendments.

  The PFP and TSU, which both oppose the package of constitutional amendments, filed more than 20 motions questioning the body's procedural rules in an attempt to block the amendments' expected passage today.

  Earlier in the afternoon, Yen Kun-chuan (顏坤泉) of the civic alliance led by Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), and his friends -- ?mostly labor movement volunteers -- engaged in a scuffle with the police when he tried to park his industrial crane inside the compound.

  "I'm very curious to know why those driving BMWs and taking their friends and families are allowed to enter the compound and have their pictures taken, while those driving a crane like me are stopped at the entrance," he said.

  Assembly members, who were becoming visibly impatient with the TSU and PFP's attempts to obstruct the assembly's activities, cheered and applauded when chairman Chen Chin-jang (陳金讓) of the KMT ruled that the forum would proceed despite the PFP's protest.

  Chien Lin Hui-chien (錢林慧君), convener of the TSU Assembly caucus, said that her party is in favor of halving the number of legislative seats but against bundling that amendment with others in one vote.

  "The Statute Governing the Operation of the National Assembly (國大職權行使法) is a very bad piece of legislation and Article 9 must be abolished," she said.
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