The first session of the 11th Legislative Yuan’s four-year term ended on Tuesday, and 55 bills were passed in the session, which is the fewest bills passed in one session in 12 years.
However, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) said the session delivered a “very good result,” despite there being fights and arguments in this break-in session for many newly elected legislators.
In the last two days of the session, lawmakers rushed to pass a slew of resolutions and bills, mainly proposed by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators, who have a combined majority in the legislature.
However, some of the resolutions and bills they hurriedly passed were controversial, including a resolution to remove a ban on group travel to China, and another requiring the president to give a state of the nation address at the legislature and answer questions from legislators.
The controversial amendments opposition legislators pushed through the legislature in May to the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法) and the Criminal Code greatly expanded lawmakers’ investigative power.
The amendments sparked strong objections from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, leading to physical confrontations and bringing tens of thousands of people onto the streets in protest.
It also prompted three government entities and the DPP to file petitions to the Constitutional Court seeking a judgement on the constitutionality of the amendments.
The Constitutional Court on Friday issued an injunction halting the enforcement of most of the articles in the amendments, including the one which requires the president to respond to lawmakers’ questions after delivering a state of the nation address.
The KMT caucus said the ruling confirmed “the death of judicial independence” and the court justices were “enforcers” of the DPP, and were so “greedy for power and position” that they were willing to abandon their dignity, adding that it was a “major constitutional crisis.”
The public cannot expect the justices to rule impartially on the amendments’ constitutionality, it said.
The KMT also said that, as the largest party in the legislature, it would continue to participate in the constitutional interpretation process to protect the “last hope” for the survival of the Republic of China’s rule of law and democracy.
The TPP caucus members said they were angry about the “unacceptable” injunction, adding that the court’s position was predetermined and it would have to face “the examination of public opinion and the historical judgement of democracy.”
The injunction ruling and the KMT and TPP responses encapsulate the first legislative session, showing the two parties’ pomposity and disrespect for the rule of law.
In the injunction hearing, KMT and TPP representatives said the court should not even have accepted the appeal, and their amendments are to fulfill the principles of popular sovereignty, responsible politics and the rule of law.
However, their actions to expand lawmakers’ investigative powers and override the rights of citizens, government officials and the elected head of state show that they have confused their self-professed principles with “majority rule,” believing that they are the sole representatives of the public and are superior to all others, including the law.
It was arrogant how they drafted the amendments covertly, and some party legislators, who were forced to vote uniformly with the caucuses’ decisions, looked clueless. TPP Legislator Chen Gau-tzu (陳昭姿) last month said she had to suppress the urge to vote against a KMT-proposed bill and follow her caucus.
The two parties’ attitude is the source of the constitutional crisis they claim to be trying to prevent.
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