On Nov. 15, the Taipei Society announced the results of an assessment of lawmakers done by journalists covering the legislature.
On a scale from one to 10, the journalists gave most legislators a rating of less than five on every item, regardless of their party affiliation. So all the lawmakers are substandard.
Some media have reported, however, that People First Party (PFP) legislators perform best, a line that has even been used as a headline. Not understanding the survey results, the PFP legislative caucus happily declared that the performance of its legislators had been affirmed, and that they will continue their efforts. In fact, since everyone is substandard, what's the use of talking about "best performance?"
The performance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus was rated at 5.56, marginally higher that the PFP's 5.24. What is clear, however, is that the performance of the DPP caucus is superior to that of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus. The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus' rating, although a bit lower, doesn't differ much from that of the KMT. The operation of the independent legislators' caucus is also far from ideal.
The substandard performance of legislators and the caucuses is probably a result of an inappropriate behavior, such as grandstanding, boycotting the [legislative] agenda, not attending legislative meetings and abusing their status as legislators to obtain benefits.
As expected, the survey shows that of 12 types of inappropriate behavior listed, there were two items where the average for all legislators fell below five. The average rating for "strongly ideological" was 6.7. The TSU and PFP legislators were the worst, with their averages being 8.6 and 7.6, respectively. These two parties place too much importance on ideology, which has had a very negative impact on the workings of the legislature.
Despite widespread public disapproval of grandstanding, the habit appears ingrained. TSU and PFP legislators are once again the worst offenders. They are also the top offenders when it comes to trying to avoid conflicts of interest. The average rating for TSU members was 6.3 and for the PFP 6.2. These ratings are closely related to the fact that over 90 percent of the respondents felt that interest groups were interfering inappropriately with legislative committees.
The behavior of lawmakers is worrisome in terms of its impact on the implementation of democracy. Such behavior means that the legislature cannot conduct its business and pass legislation smoothly. The survey showed that the extremely poor performance of legislators has a negative impact on the overall operation of the legislature as well as on the implementation of government policy.
When it comes to legislative committees and their functions, 73 percent of the journalists felt that there is excessive interference by vested interests. Without any restrictions against lobbying and without any clear and effective legislative disciplinary standards, each committee is hampered by inappropriate intervention by vested interests.
At a previous symposium arranged by the Taipei Society, legislative reporters pessimistically pointed out that there are so few trustworthy legislators as to be frightening. The recent survey specifically asked: "[Judging] from your interviewing experience, how many legislators are trustworthy?" The average result was 12. This, however, includes the response from one journalist who answered 112, which raised the average. Excluding that response, the average falls to nine legislators.
Another statistic worth noting is that one-quarter of the journalists said there wasn't one legislator who was trustworthy. Such a low number was surprising as well as worrying.
As every aspect of the performance of legislators is substandard, with some parties having a slight lead in a few areas -- such a legislature is truly rotten through and through.
The Taipei Society is trying hard to monitor legislators and to submit detailed evaluation reports, although the media seem to show no interest and legislators continue to do as they please. We must now give serious consideration to the question of whether the society's program for monitoring the legislature and our implementation of that program is capable of winning public support.
Chiu Hei-yuan and Wang Yeh-lih are members of the Taipei Society. Chiu is director of the society's program to monitor the legislature. Wang is director of its journalist-survey assessment program.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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