The longest-ever extra legislative session, which began on August 11 and will finish on August 24 is being held without good cause, scholars and legislators say. The currently extra legislative session is the seventh in the country's history.
Prior to Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) assuming the presidency in 2000, the legislature held few extra sessions. But after Chen called for an extra session to review six financial bills in 2001, the tradition of saving extra sessions for emergencies has faded, and now the legislature holds them almost every year.
The extra session is gradually becoming something like the regular legislative session, in violation of the Constitution and the related law. The Constitution and the Legislative Yuan Organic Law (立法院組織法), states that the legislature is allowed to hold extra sessions outside the regular session when there are major or urgent national issues occurring during the recess period and requiring immediate attention. It also states that for an extra session to be held, either the President has to call for one, or one-fourth of all lawmakers must sign a petition to request an extra session. It also stipulates that in the extra session, the legislators can discuss only the specific issues which warranted the extra session in the first place.
This year both the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucuses requested an extra session, and after negotiations, each caucus agreed that 10 bills were to be discussed in the session.
The DPP's top priority, besides the Constitutional amendment on legislative downsizing, is to deal with the special budget for the 10 New Major Construction Projects and a budget for those hit by Tropical Storm Mindulle. The KMT caucus, on the other hand, is focussing on a draft statute regulating the investigative committee on the March 19 assassination attempt on Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), and a request to establish a document-reviewing committee on the initiation of a national security mechanism following the shooting.
But academics say that all these bills lack the urgency and importance needed for calling an extra session.
"There is no urgency in calling for the extra session ... [legislators] are just trying to create an image that they are working hard for the public good before the legislative election," said Emile Sheng, an associate political science professor at Soochow University.
"The caucuses are damaging the essence of the extra session. It is not a good thing for the legislature to turn the extra session into a norm. The lawmakers should review the important bills during the regular sessions," she said.
Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), convener of the Congress Revolution Alliance and a sociology professor at National Chengchi University agrees with Sheng's observation.
"The public does not expect lawmakers to pass any major bills in the extra session. Even the constitutional amendment bill and the bills on the March 19 shooting incident look like all show and no substance," Ku said.
Ku noted that when the People First Party (PFP) demonstrated its objection to the constitutional amendment bill before the extra session started, it became unlikely that the bill would get passed.
"Perhaps the lawmakers will manage to pass some minor bills in the extra session, but if that's all it's used for, then the session will have really been a waste of taxpayers' money," he said.
Many legislators concur with this sentiment.
"The DPP should stop using the constitutional amendment bill to grandstand," KMT legislator Hsu Chung-hsiung (徐中雄) said.
"They have misled the public; legislative reform is about quality, not quantity," Hsu said.
"As for other bills -- are they all that important? Do we really need to hold an extra session to handle them? The sanctity of the extra session has completely disappeared," Hsu added.
DPP legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) was also unreserved in opposing his party's insistence on an extra session.
"When the legislature holds an extra session, it has to be for handling big issues. But now, when an extra session is held almost every year, this kind of extra session is not about the big issues at all and it is setting a bad precedent," Lin said.
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