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Passage of media bill

The national communications commission (NCC) bill that the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) and the People First Party's (PFP) legislative caucuses are trying to force through the legislature could become a big problem. It regulates the organization of an institution, but actually includes articles with clear legislative intent aimed at overturning many past decisions, restrictive articles about the system for appointing committee members proportionally according to the number of seats won by each party during the latest legislative elections and an article similar to the practice of appointing one's own relatives.

The legislative proceedings have of course been contentious: the pan-blue camp took an old government proposal, cut it up and then pasted it back together. It then claimed to be pushing hard for the creation of the NCC. The day before Tuesday's vote, they were still worried and continued their fiddling, replacing articles behind closed doors.

The next day the bill was supposed to be passed without discussion, with the push of a button. This fact in itself is enough to break all legislative records, even the one set by the truth investigation commission statute, which was deemed unconstitutional.

The contents of this bill are even more interesting. First of all, the contentious Article 4 regulating the system to appoint committee members according to the proportional representation of political parties was modeled on the truth investigation committee statute. Even the number of committee members has been calculated to ensure that the pan-blue camp holds the majority as well as both the chairmanship and the deputy chairmanship. Using its legislative majority, the opposition parties will expand the investigative rights originally restricted to the Control Yuan and the prosecutorial authorities, and they can even get their hands on the policymaking and representative rights of a second-level administrative institution.

And that is not all. The fourth clause in the same article says that party caucuses given a quota of more than three people -- ie, the KMT and the PFP -- must appoint committee members that have been civil servants, but not for at least three years. There are not many such people in the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors, so this is basically tailoring the requirements to meet their own wishes.

The sixth article is a disaster. It disqualifies anyone who has been an adviser to the government or a state-run enterprise during the past three years. In one fell swoop, it blocks anyone working for the incumbent government, including all technical, legal and economic experts who have advised government agencies during the past three years.

The second article specifies that not even the NCC will be able to control companies listed on the OTC exchange, which clearly is meant to assist China Television Co. Article 19 lets the pan-blue camp-controlled NCC review decisions made prior to Jan. 1 last year, upset legal precedents -- including decisions related to the political party assets bill so detested by the KMT -- and demand that the government restore decisions to their "original state" and make up for losses incurred as a result of such decisions. This is obviously an article meant to open a back door into party assets legislation.

Aside from lofty talk on responsible politics or administrative unity, one question must be asked: Even if the KMT and the PFP manage to set up this independent institution, have they thought about how to actually make it work?

Howard Shyr is an associate professor at National Chengchi University, an executive member of the Campaign For Media Reform and a former member of the board at Taiwan Television.

Translated by Perry Svensson
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