The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus last Wednesday threw out proposals submitted by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators on the grounds that they would “interfere with government policies” and “squander money,” according to the first-ever recording of a Procedure Committee meeting.
The legislature last month gave the green light to an amendment proposed by the opposition parties demanding that meetings of the Procedure Committee be recorded and broadcast to promote transparency, which the opposition said would deter the governing party from continuing to block their legislative proposals.
Despite the new amendment, six bills proposed by opposition parties in the first meeting after the amendment were blocked by the majority KMT.
“The KMT caucus appeared to be the ‘imperial guard’ of the Legislative Yuan,” Citizen Congress Watch said on Sunday, adding that the party should respect public opinion and stop arbitrarily rejecting opposition proposals.
Citizen’s Congress Watch executive director Chang Hung-lin (張宏林) lashed out at the KMT caucus for blocking the proposed bills during the agenda-setting phase, saying the move was disrespectful to the legislators who represent a segments of society with different views and that even a legislative majority did not entitle the KMT to dismiss people’s concerns.
Chang said the committee should stipulate detailed regulations to resolve the problem and urged the KMT caucus to at least cite “a more convincing reason” the next time it wants to block a proposed bill.
“Since the KMT caucus holds the majority of seats in all the legislative committees, even if proposals by opposition parties were to be listed in the legislative agenda, the majority party could still cast out any unfavorable proposals through legal procedures or by voting against during legislative sittings,” Chang said.
Chang said Taiwan was the only democratic country that would allow the majority party to block bills proposed by other legislators during procedural committee meetings because this gave the committee greater executive power than a sitting of the full legislature.
DPP caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) also criticized the KMT’s moves during the meeting, saying they showed that the KMT has no regard for public opinion and does whatever it pleases.
“The KMT caucus smothers all proposals that are unfavorable to the party, taking away any opportunities for public debate and examination, as if it is the ‘boss during the Martial Law era,’” Ker said.
People First Party (PFP) caucus convener Thomas Lee (李桐豪) said no other party could prevent the KMT caucus from blocking a bill at any legislative stage since the KMT holds a majority.
The KMT caucus has long been blocking proposals during meetings of the Procedure Committee, Lee said, adding that conflicts between the governing party and the opposition parties would continue in its future meetings.
Commenting on the efficacy of recording such meetings, Lee said the approach could bring about changes to the unbalanced situation in legislature, because more transparency would enable the public to assess and remark on the KMT caucus.
In response, KMT Policy Committee Director Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said the party caucus only blocked proposals that were deemed “highly disputed,” because the party advocates prioritizing policies and does not want to see ideologically based proposals rejected only after protracted deliberation, keeping other proposals concerning people’s livelihood from being passed.
Translated by Stacy Hsu, Staff writer
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching