Inter-party bickering continues to hinder legislature

"Lawmakers will not bother to review bills if their professional findings can always be overturned by closed-door negotiations later."

Lai Shyh-bao, former lawmaker

Much remains unfinished after the past legislative session ended shortly after midnight on Tuesday.

Partisan vindictive boycotts, and backroom wrangling continued to dominate the lawmaking body, where no party controls a majority, even though the frequency and intensity of showdowns fell slightly.

Altogether, the just-concluded session passed 106 bills, 28 of them on the last two days.

The government's spending bill consumed the bulk of the session, with the legislature allowing 12 standing committees two months to review its items line by line.

Last week, the caucuses agreed to remove a total of NT$22.1 billion from the proposed NT$1.57 trillion expenditures, overriding the decisions of some committees to speed up the budgetary review.

Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), a former lawmaker who teaches business administration at National Chengchi University, said he was worried legislators were beginning to take the committee reviews too lightly.

"Lawmakers will not bother to review bills if their professional findings can always be overturned by closed-door negotiations later," he said.

To avoid disputes and stalling the legislative process, lawmakers normally bypass controversial items and forward them to cross-party talks, where political calculations often crowd out professional judgment.

Lai committee review must not be overlooked, as bills receive most attention and debate at this stage.

"The caucuses should respect committee decisions, in line with the principles of professionalism and reciprocity," he said.

However, it is the reciprocity that accounts for much of the intensive give-and-take behind closed doors.

TSU Lo Chih-ming (羅志明) noted that caucuses agreed to cut the government's budget after failing to iron out differences among the committees.

"The end result, while not satisfactory, is acceptable to all," he said.

Still, seeking to raise the stakes, the ruling and opposition camps repeatedly boycotted bills introduced by each other and refused to budge until the session drew to an end.

The opposition KMT and PFP legislative caucuses, taking advantage of their slim majority in the Procedure Committee, jointly kept 15 green-camp initiatives off the legislative agenda.

In retaliation, the TSU managed to block 74 bills proposed by the blue camp from being sent to committees for review.

As a result of these delaying tactics, lawmakers spent several plenary sessions doing nothing, while priority bills that the Cabinet hoped to make law failed to reach the floor.

Bills regulate political parties and their assets, for instance, failed to pass, although some had hoped the mounting backlash against vote-buying would prompt the adoption of the political donation law.

The KMT was able to hold up the legislation permitting the government to confiscate assets illegally acquired by political parties, in exchange for its support for a bill that allows the Cabinet to borrow money from state coffers to pay back interest.

Likewise, the PFP stopped the political donation law, saying it needed more discussion.

This inaction disappointed KMT lawmaker Apollo Chen (陳學聖), who said public outrage against the vote-buying scandal involving Kaohsiung city councilors created a great window of opportunity for the law.

"The bill has little chance of being enacted in the future," he said.

In addition, opposition lawmakers rammed through resolutions demanding the government scrap the hikes in National Health Insurance fees and return 36 grassroots credit units to farmers and fishermen's associations.

Yesterday, DPP Legislator Charles Chiang (江昭儀) petitioned the Council of Grand Justices to rule on the legality of the resolutions, saying they encroach on the power of the executive branch.

This issue, along with the NT$50 billion public construction expansion program, promises more partisan bickering despite the recess, as neither side intends to back down.

Legislative Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) has said a legislative resolution is tantamount to a law which the Cabinet must obey.

But there is no way the Cabinet can return the 36 credit units, which have already been taken over by other commercial banks.

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