Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have proposed amendments to prevent lawmakers from leaking confidential material concerning important state matters and national security.
The amendments proposed by DPP legislators Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) and Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱), as well as fellow party members, aim to address loopholes in the Organic Act of the Legislative Yuan (立法院組織法) and Legislators’ Conduct Act (立法委員行為法).
The amendments would require lawmakers, ministry officials, legislative clerks and stenographers attending closed-door legislative meetings to sign a non-disclosure agreement before being allowed entry, and would prohibit them from bringing in mobile phones and other telecommunication devices.
Photo: Taipei Times
The amendments are needed to protect sensitive government information and highly classified materials related to the military, national defense and state intelligence agencies, Chung said.
“If the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) want to expand their authority ... then they have an obligation not to divulge our nation’s secrets,” he said.
Chung was referring to the KMT’s and TPP’s attempts to amend the Rules of Procedure of the Legislative Yuan (立法院議事規則) to give lawmakers the power to hold investigative hearings.
Chung said he would like to create four legal “protective firewalls” to prevent lawmakers from leaking state secrets and colluding with enemy forces, by patching loopholes in the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Rules of Procedure of the Legislative Yuan, Legislators’ Conduct Act and the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例).
The proposed amendments would also require lawmakers and their aides to report to the legislature’s secretariat when traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau, during the legislative session.
Such information would be made available to the public, and a judicial investigation would be conducted if lawmakers contravene the regulation.
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