The Legislative Yuan will record and broadcast meetings of its Procedure Committee live after the four party caucuses reached an agreement on Tuesday.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and opposition parties had been divided over the issue of broadcasting the meetings since the lawmakers’ current term began on Feb. 1, with the KMT having reservations about the idea.
Differences on the matter had also led to a delay in forming the Procedure Committee, which is responsible for reviewing motions and arranging the schedule of legislative proceedings.
The committee is composed of 19 lawmakers, drawn from each political party according to their proportion of seats in the legislature, with each party having at least one member, according to the legislature’s Web site.
During negotiations hosted by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), it was agreed that 11 seats in the committee would go to the KMT, six to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and one each to the People First Party (PFP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said the KMT could no longer avoid the issue and he had approached Wang before the negotiations. With the legislature’s plenary sessions and meetings of the eight standing committees having been broadcast live online since February 2009, PFP caucus whip Thomas Lee (李桐豪) said Wang’s support had helped the parties reach an agreement.
KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said the ruling party did not oppose the idea of promoting transparency.
The legislature’s live broadcast is available at http://ivod.ly.gov.tw.
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