In democratic countries, the main role of opposition parties is to monitor, check and balance the government. When the central government’s annual budget drafted by the governing party was sent to the Legislative Yuan for review, lawmakers, in theory, can approve, reduce or delete parts of the proposal as needed.
If the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government does not secure the budget it needs, when problems arise, can the public be indifferent to the process by which their needs cannot be met? How can they not care and forget about it? In the next election, the ruling party would then be held accountable for its poor performance and could even lose votes.
If opposition lawmakers continue to block the annual budget by leveraging their legislative majority, the machinery of state could well come to a grinding halt. The opposition-dominated legislature would then be directing the Executive Yuan’s annual spending policy. Can this really be called the opposition monitoring the ruling DPP?
In countries that have three separate branches of government, the executive, legislative and judicial powers belong to their respective branches, with their own division of labor, responsibilities and authority. The situation in Taiwan is special in that it has two additional branches of government: the Examination Yuan and the Control Yuan. Before the two latter branches are formally abolished, we can only accept them, however reluctantly.
With their legislative majority, opposition lawmakers have been trying to downgrade the Executive Yuan to a subordinate unit of the Legislative Yuan, infringing on judicial power and grabbing supervisory power. Is this supervising the government or an attempt to expand their power?
The ruling DPP has chosen to stand with the US, Japan and democratic European countries, while the opposition parties have embraced communist China as “family,” are skeptical about the US and feel enmity toward Japan.
Following the first power transfer in 2000, the ruling DPP’s proposed weapons budget was blocked 69 times by opposition-dominated legislature, and plans to procure US submarines was aborted. Today, the ruling DPP is once again facing the same problem of an opposition-led legislature that is trying its best to hinder the ruling party and the nation’s indigenous submarine project. As the opposition parties block the ruling party’s arms procurement and submarine project that are meant to protect the country, this is clearly not a check and balance, but a blow to Taiwan’s national defense, putting the lives and properties of Taiwanese at risk.
As the opposition parties boycott the Executive Yuan’s budget proposal, intervene in the Judicial Yuan and even bully the Control Yuan, they are abusing and expanding their powers, not monitoring the ruling DPP. As they block the arms procurement and submarine project, they are showing how they favor China, are skeptical about the US and antagonistic toward Japan. They are the enemies of democracy, freedom and human rights, and are in no way practicing the principle of check and balance.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired National Hsinchu University of Education associate professor.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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