The Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee has withdrawn its preliminary review report on proposed amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) amid a dispute over seven national holidays.
The committee plans to hold public hearings before reviewing the proposed amendments again, and if the second review does not result in a consensus, the committee will hand the proposals over to party caucuses for negotiation, after which it will be handed back to the Executive Yuan. The procedure aims to fix the defects in the proposals and reconsider them, but it leaves considerable concern about how to resolve the loss of trust in legislators and the legislative process.
Representative democracy is a form of entrustment of authority and is founded upon trust in legislators to exercise that authority in a proper manner. The process that takes place from the time when the relation of trust is established to when it produces practical results becomes redundant if the legislators who have been entrusted with the authority betray that trust.
It is becoming more difficult for the system, which depends on elected legislators, to reflect the full range of interests and demands of the public. It is therefore necessary to set up a responsive system that can directly reflect the public’s wishes and demands.
Legislation has the function of reconciling complicated and conflicting interests. There are usually clashes of interest between those pursuing different aims and it is therefore necessary to seek common points of leverage between diverse opinions. Although there might be no perfect solution, a fair legislative process is the best way to resolve conflicts of interest.
Legislation should work toward achieving fairness through the design of the legislative process. Since the proposed amendments involve conflicts of interest between workers and employers, it should be made possible for representatives of workers’ and employers’ groups to communicate, negotiate and try to persuade one another on an equal footing, and for them to have an influence on the outcome of the legislation.
Based on the experience of advanced nations where the rule of law prevails, legislative argumentation often means decisionmaking that has a bearing on the interests of people or organizations, so the necessity and suitability of proposed legislation cannot depend only on deliberation based on the viewpoints of different political parties. It also requires experts and academics, executive departments and individual or group stakeholders to contribute their opinions, the purpose being to compensate for legislators’ bias or lack of knowledge by soliciting a wide range of opinions and scientific assessments.
Given that the proposed amendments have caused major controversy, it would be advisable for the authorities in charge of labor and economic affairs to prepare statements laying out their views, along with survey data, and take responsibility for explaining the purpose and reasoning for applying this data, and also be accountable for responding to the opinions raised by various sectors.
Legislation should develop in line with society. The purpose of legislative argumentation is to compensate for the inadequacies of representative democracy and prevent legislators from making reckless or arbitrary decisions.
It should be an unshakeable basic principle of the legislative process, and indeed of democratic politics, and it will be a key factor in finding a satisfactory solution for the proposed amendments.
Lo Chuan-hsien is an adjunct professor of law at Central Police University and a former director-general of the Legislative Yuan’s Legislative Bureau.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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