Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators are bypassing established procedures to push through a package of bills that would expand lawmakers’ powers, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus members said yesterday.
The group of bills — which would make “contempt of the legislature” a punishable offense and require the president to deliver a “state of the nation address” to the body — on Tuesday cleared the Legislative Yuan’s Procedure Committee with support from Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators.
DPP caucus secretary-general Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said the bills did not undergo established procedures for deliberation and review in legislative committees, as well as cross-party negotiations.
Photo: CNA
Wu said that TPP legislators were working with the KMT to fast-track the legislation to pass a third reading tomorrow.
“If, as expected, the KMT and TPP work together to use their majority in the legislature to get the bills past the third reading vote, it would go down in history as the most reprehensible action by legislators,” she said.
The KMT is also pushing through “money pit projects,” spearheaded by KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁), she said.
The bills include more than NT$2 trillion (US$61.9 billion) for major transportation projects on the east coast, which did not undergo a clause-by-clause review at the legislative committee level, as has been standard in the past, she said.
In addition, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) has not presided over the process in accordance with tradition, Wu said.
She said Han was allowing the bills to skip established procedures to reach a party vote on the floor of the legislature.
“Under Han’s leadership, the legislature has stopped functioning properly, undermining our democratic system,” she said.
In the past, when the KMT held a larger majority under former legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), Wang would insist that legislation undergo several rounds of deliberation, review and cross-party negotiation to respect the rights of opposition parties.
“Han has taken away other parties’ rights to these procedures, and the legislature is on track to become a rubber-stamp body for the KMT,” she said.
Meanwhile, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Mong-kai (洪孟楷) yesterday said that his party had set up a schedule for rotating groups of KMT legislators to watch the entrance to the main legislative chamber for the 24 hours leading up to tomorrow’s vote to prevent DPP lawmakers from interfering.
He said it was necessary to prevent DPP members from entering the chamber beforehand to use delay tactics, such as introducing a series of motions or taking the floor for long speeches to block the bills’ passage.
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
Passengers aboard Korean Airlines Flight KE189 arrived in Taichung safely yesterday after a scare the previous day encountering uncontrolled decompression, which injured 13 passengers. Flight KE189 departed from Incheon at 4:45pm on Saturday bound for Taichung with 125 passengers on board. The flight was above Jeju Island when a fault in the pressurization system occurred 50 minutes after takeoff. Online flight tracker Flightradar24’s data show that the plane dropped more than 8,000 meters within 15 minutes, before it returned and landed back at Incheon Airport at 19:38pm. Thirteen passengers on board had a headache or earache due to the incident and were hospitalized. A different
China might seek to isolate Taiwan and weaken its economy through a “quarantine,” which would make it difficult for the US to respond and force Taipei to negotiate on unification, CNN reported on Saturday. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “increasingly bellicose actions” toward Taiwan have heightened concerns that Beijing would use its military against Taiwan, it said, citing a report by think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). However, China might choose to initiate a quarantine, rather than a military invasion of Taiwan, to avoid US involvement, it said. “A quarantine [is] a law enforcement-led operation to control
A new message broadcast on the Taipei MRT’s Wenhu (Brown) Line urging passengers to yield their seats to those in need, not necessarily elderly people, would be extended to other MRT lines and public transportation in the capital, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday. Chiang was responding to reporters’ questions on the sidelines of a news conference at Taipei City Hall promoting healthy walking. Several disputes over priority seats on public transportation have recently been reported, sparking debate about who qualifies to sit in them, as most of the cases involved elderly people asking young people to give up their