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Reform of legislative processes is essential

FOLLOWING THE HALVING of legislative seats, the ruling and opposition parties have been negotiating changes to procedures, such as reducing the number of permanent legislative committees to eight and the number of committee conveners to two, while increasing the number of assistants for each legislator.

Other amendments mostly deal with lowering the required number of signatures when signing documents and the number of legislators needed to second a motion.

Significant changes to the electoral system must be accompanied by adjustments to the legislative regulations. However, there is still a large gap between the small adjustments made by the parties in the legislature and public expectations for legislative reform.

For years, in addition to confrontations between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, the strongest criticism against the legislature has been aimed at closed-door negotiations between caucuses, the lack of integrity of lawmakers, inappropriate relations between politicians and business and other conflicts of interest.

But these problems -- those in most urgent need of reform -- are barely addressed in the latest amendments.

Since party negotiation mechanisms became law in 2002, the role of committees was replaced, which turned the legislature's operations into even more of an opaque "black box." The legislature has become a place where a number of lawmakers threaten legislative operations to ensure personal gain.

Although a consensus has been reached to lower the caucus requirement to three legislators in response to the changes, the party caucus negotiation mechanism has not been reformed. For example, adjustments are needed to shorten the four-month negotiation period, to produce and table records of meetings and to prevent lawmakers from overturning committee decisions.

The legislature must vigorously undertake reform of the negotiation mechanism lest it continue to operate without transparency.

In the new legislature, the influence of individual lawmakers will increase, and voters should monitor their integrity and performance. Based on the public's right to know, the future legislature could take the initiative to make a record of the activities of lawmakers.

For example, data on committee attendance and general meetings should be recorded and released online. Voting records should also be available, as well as information on other jobs the legislators concurrently hold, political donations and advocacy, the names of assistants and -- after the Lobbying Law (遊說法) comes into effect in August -- their lobbying history, so that both the public and media outlets can monitor performance.

The future legislature should introduce a strict policy on conflict of interest and amend the Legislators' Conduct Act (立法委員行為法) to increase penalties for ethical violations.

Each party caucus should also keep close tabs on the members and conveners of each committee.

And the rights of a caucus should be suspended for a period of time if any of its lawmakers violate these regulations.

The legislature is the main venue for authoritative distribution of political and economic benefits.

With the new electoral system, the next legislature is likely to have a fresh look. Whether it will be an improvement or a precipitator of further decline will depend on the introduction of a set of transparent regulations.

Wang Yeh-lih is a professor of political science at Tunghai University.

Translated by Eddy Chang
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