Lawmakers decided to postpone the review of next year's central government budget after inter-party negotiations again proved fruitless.
The Legislature will reconvene the multiparty negotiations on Monday, and hopefully lawmakers could start the review the next day by finalizing the legislative agenda of the budgetary review at the Legislative Yuan's Procedure Committee, said legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) after the negotiations yesterday morning.
The Executive Yuan should elaborate on its claim that the Legislature violated the law and the Constitution by requesting that the Cabinet amend the bud-get while it is under review, Wang said. He reiterated the viewpoint yesterday following a week-long deadlock between the government and legislators on the annual review of the central government budget.
The Executive Yuan handed a 15-point explanatory note to the Legislature on Monday, a deadline set by the pan-blue controlled Legislative Yuan, instead of the amended spending plan that lawmakers had demanded.
Cabinet Secretary-General Liu Shi-fang (劉世芳) said that, according to the Executive Yuan, there are no legal grounds for the amendment, while Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the explanatory note was the only response that the Executive Yuan could offer lawmakers to help them with the budgetary plan.
The legislative speaker said yesterday that the Executive Yuan should explain how the Legislative Yuan has violated the law.
The Legislature would admit its mistake if the Cabinet's claim can be cleared up, but the government should take the blame if it turns out to have been the lawmakers' mistake, Wang said.
This would not be the first time the Cabinet has been asked to submit a budgetary amendment, Wang said.
Neither the law nor the Constitution prohibits lawmakers from initiating a resolution for an amended budgetary plan. The resolution was the ultimate decision made by lawmakers, and the Executive Yuan should respect this, Wang said.
Lin yesterday stressed that, presently, there is no question of submitting an amendment.
"The Cabinet was not supposed to argue about the Legislature's infringement of laws and the Constitution. The point is that lawmakers should carry out the budgetary review after the presentation of the explanatory note. They can voice their disagreement by cutting down on the parts of the budget that they are dissatisfied with, rather than holding up the bill on the legislative floor," Lin said.
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