Neutrality and professionalism as well as wide public participation are keys to a successful parliamentary watchdog campaign, South Korean parliamentary watchdog and activist Lee Kyeong-yool said.
Lee made the remarks during a meeting with members of Taiwan’s Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) in Taipei yesterday.
Lee, an environmentalist and president of South Korea’s International Environment Action Association, has participated in the parliament watch campaign since it was launched 10 years ago.
In 1999, South Korean parliamentary reformers worked with more than 400 civic groups to criticize candidates in the 2000 parliamentary election.
The campaign proved successful after 59 of the 85 candidates on their “denouncement list” failed in their parliamentary bids. After the 2000 campaign, activists continued to monitor the performance of parliamentarians.
The group dispatches observers to parliament meetings and record each member’s performance, attendance and reason for absence. They even record the precise times a member of parliament spends on toilet breaks. Evaluations of parliamentarians are then made based on the group’s records, from which the five best-performing members are chosen.
While any South Korean citizen can sign up to become a parliamentary observer, Lee said neutrality and professionalism are two requirements.
“Two observers are paired as a team to hear a meeting, and at least one of them has to have professional knowledge about the meeting they are attending,” Lee said. “For example, you have to have a background in environmental issues to attend a meeting relating to the environment, and you have to be a member of a women’s rights group to hear a meeting on women’s issues.”
While South Korean parliament watchdogs encountered problems at first, their professionalism and neutrality has gained them considerable credibility, Lee said.
“At first, we were asked to leave [meetings] or accused of being biased,” Lee said. “But we stuck to our principles and members of parliament eventually began to welcome us, and the people trust us.”
“So professionalism and neutrality are very important,” he added.
CCW executive director Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) said the legislative watch campaign in Taiwan was facing the same problems their South Korean counterparts did in the initial stage.
“High tension between political parties makes us easy targets to be labeled as ‘biased’ or ‘partisan,’” Ho said. “It’s also difficult for us to get first-hand information about the legislature, as we’re still barred from sitting in legislative meetings.”
“But it took the South Koreans seven to eight years to become a substantial force in monitoring their parliament, so I believe that we could achieve that stage in 2016,” he said.
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