Premier Yu Shyi-kun will today call for legislative reform and upgrading the quality of legislative question-and-answer sessions at the legislature, following his walking out on the lawmaking body on Tuesday after two People First Party (PFP) lawmakers called him a "rascal politician."
"The premier will go to the Legislative Yuan [Friday] morning as he does for the twice-a-week plenary legislative sessions, awaiting the results of cross-party negotiations before making the announcement," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) told a press conference yesterday afternoon.
This matter was no longer a personal one but has become a problem of the legislative system, he said.
"It doesn't really matter whether the two PFP lawmakers offer an apology," Lin said.
"We'd like to see lawmakers upgrade the quality of their questioning skills and focus on rational debate and government policies rather than resort to grandstanding and personal defamation," he said.
"First of all, the premier would request lawmakers to show respect for the legislative speaker and Cabinet officials during the question-and-answer sessions," Lin said.
"In addition, lawmakers have to allow Cabinet officials an equal amount of time to answer their questions, instead of having to listen to their tirades or personal denigration," he said.
The legislative speaker or deputy speaker presiding over the interpellation sessions were obliged to stop lawmakers making offensive remarks against Cabinet officials, he said.
Echoing Yu's call, Lin said that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus would also make a similar proposal during today's cross-party negotiations.
According to Lin, the caucus would propose a three-question, three-answer approach for the question-and-answer sessions so Cabinet officials would have equal opportunities to answer lawmakers' questions.
In a bid to make the interpellation sessions more effective and allow more time for lawmakers to review bills, the caucus would propose to have questions asked in proportion to the number of parties' seats in the legislature. Currently, lawmakers interested in questioning the premier and Cabinet officials can do so by merely signing up.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
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