Print

Mail

wiki links

Legislative reform can boost public confidence

With the approach of elections for a legislature with a new single-district, double ballot system, the public seems to be looking forward to the outcome while also being afraid of disappointment.

As a result, there is much debate on how to make the next legislature less dislikable than the outgoing one. There have been powerful calls for reform, and although there are differences among them, most of the demands have common goals: transparency of information (such as lawmakers' attendance rates, voting records, disclosure of assistants' names and registration of lobbyists) live broadcast of question-and-answer sessions and disclosure of negotiations between party caucuses.

These practices are commonplace in democratically advanced countries. So why does the legislature find it so difficult to take even one step forward in achieving such transparency?

Some academics worry that excessive transparency, such as complete disclosure of caucus negotiations, will not be conducive to consensus-building or otherwise harm the efficiency of legislative review.

Other academics think that -- based on the experiences of the US Congress -- too much openness will provide lobbyists with excellent opportunities to assess their achievements.

When more technical bills are discussed, the general public can only follow developments through meeting protocols, while only insiders can see what is really going on. Thus, some observers do not believe that complete transparency can prevent corruption or other irregularities.

But do these concerns explain why the legislature is dragging its heels on implementing reform? After forums organized by the Taiwan Vision Forum and Association and Citizen Congress Watch, I was amazed to find that the more dedicated legislators want more transparency, especially with real-time publication of committee meetings and attendance records and what is said on the record.

But the legislature has refused to permit live broadcast of its sessions because some legislators deem it inappropriate to let voters know just how poorly many among their number perform.

There also seems to be a consensus among dedicated legislators that, at the very least, key points of discussions during party caucus negotiations should be publicized, as well as the reasoning behind the initial and post-negotiation stances of the parties after bills have been made law.

The outgoing legislature as a whole, however, has considered none of these things.

Public calls for legislative transparency are only just beginning to be heard. Meanwhile, some local councils have already implemented transparency measures and have left the legislature far behind.

For example, the Chinese-language Liberty Times -- the Taipei Times' sister newspaper -- checks attendance at the Taipei City Council at 2pm every session day, and any councilors late for the session are named in the following edition. As a result, councilors have been arriving at meetings on time more regularly.

The problem is that by 2:30pm half of those present will have left, therefore live broadcasts of the full meeting are necessary.

Although the Taipei City Council is struggling on this score, the Kaohsiung City Council has been able to live up to public expectations of punctuality. So why not the legislature?

Legislative reform, especially transparency, requires that outstanding and devoted legislators and non-government supervisory organizations work together.

It is hoped that these visionary politicians and monitors alike will be able to see these necessary changes through to the end.

Liao Da-chi is a professor at the Institute of Political Science at National Sun Yat-sen University.

Translated by Ted Yang
This story has been viewed 876 times.