Lately, the halving of the number of legislative seats has been proposed by several parties, one after the other, as a platform for the year-end legislative elections. Reflecting the opinion that the legislature is one of the major sources of domestic political turmoil, the proposal has had a certain impact in various circles following the stripping of the National Assembly's powers.
If we, for the time being, leave aside the issues of whether halving the legislature involves amending the ROC Constitution and of legislators' vested interests, it seems that, as much as parties like to shout this slogan, no one has yet put forward any convincing ideas on how to handle the difficulties that may actually be encountered if it is put into effect. It has more or less turned into a campaign slogan -- a repetition of what the other party says, self-explanatory, even populist -- and this is unfortunate.
Thinking deeply about the issue of halving the legislature, a responsible party or politician should at the very least be able to answer the following questions. Are there really too many legislators? Is there any objective standard for evaluation of this proposition? What number of parliamentarians is reasonable in a national parliament? Why must it be cut exactly in half? How was this proportion arrived at? What would be the purpose of such a move?
Looking at it from the viewpoint of comparative politics, what is a reasonable number of parliamentarians? Certainly, this depends on population size, geographic size, historical background, constitutional system and even parliamentary structure (unicameral or bicameral), but to maintain a collegiate national legislature for efficient and proper debate, there must of course be neither too few nor too many parliamentarians.
But what is actually a fitting number? Maybe we shouldn't only fall back on intuitive feeling or subjective ideas of what's good or bad: in political theory, there is a famous law called "the cube root law of assembly sizes" that maybe could throw some light on the situation.
Based on empirical research by parliaments in different countries and the models they have established, this law says that the actual number of a country's parliamentarians tends toward the cube root of the national population. Using this formula, the number of legislators in the Taiwan's legislature should be around 282 (based on the Ministry of the Interior's figures for the population of Taiwan in 2000). Not only is the current number of 225 not too high, but, calculated according to this formula, it may even be slightly on the low side.
Putting political theory aside and looking at experience, if we examine the most recent numbers of parliamentarians in the parliaments of major democratic countries we'll find that many countries with a population smaller than Taiwan's (such as Greece, Portugal and Sweden) have more parliamentarians than Taiwan.
If we evaluate the number of parliamentarians as a proportion of the national population, the number of people represented by each legislator in Taiwan (currently close to 100,000 people per legislator) is higher than for a large majority of democratic countries, apart from a few countries with populations in excess of 100 million (such as the US, Japan and India).
Using democratic countries with a population below 100 million as examples, the number of people currently represented by each legislator in Taiwan is higher than for legislators in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxemburg, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. It is similar to those in Canada, France, Holland and Spain, and lower than those in Australia and Germany. Thus we are not able to find too much data or material in support of the arguments of people claiming that the number of legislators in the Legislative Yuan is too high.
Retreating one step, if seats in the legislature really must be cut by half, then all that is really necessary is that the general public be in agreement, that the political parties be in agreement, and that it be politically correct. In that scenario there would of course be no reason why it couldn't be done.
We must, however, first clarify the purpose for halving the legislature. Apart from reducing public expenditures, should raising legislative efficiency, improving legislative quality and solving the current chaos in the legislature be the major goals? Do these issues stand in a direct causal relationship to the number of legislators?
In the past, a mere 79 mem-bers of the provincial assembly elected by the population of Taiwan were more powerful than the legislators. According to this logic, the efficiency and quality of the provincial assembly of the past should be a role model for the current Legislative Yuan. But is the crux of the issue really only the number of seats?
Actually, even if the number of legislators were cut by half, for the change to have any meaning, it would have to be carried out in coordination with other legislative reforms (eg the strengthening of committee functions, the reformation of the caucus negotiation system). If not, would legislative discussions -- which in today's 225-member legislature often cannot be held for lack of a quorum -- become even more difficult?
How should the current 12 committees be organized if the number of legislative seats is halved? How should meetings be held? Will the quality of legislative review increase as a result?
Currently, five legislators can organize a caucus or an alliance. Does that mean that if legislative seats are cut by half, only two or three people will be able to organize and participate in caucus negotiations? Will this exacerbate booty sharing behind closed doors and political blackmail?
If these issues cannot be considered and resolved, simply shouting "Halve the legislature!" will amount to simply shouting a cheap campaign slogan in an attempt to curry favor with the general public.
Wang Yeh-lih is a professor of political science at Tunghai University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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