The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) version of supervisory articles for agreements with China “completely violates” democratic principles, prominent Sunflower activists said yesterday, blasting the draft proposals that would allow the final version of agreements to go into effect without a legislative vote.
“In a democratic country, you cannot use the fact that time has gone by to say that something has passed,” said Economic Democracy Union convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強), whose group spearheaded early opposition to a trade in services agreement with China that culminated in the 2014 Sunflower movement.
The movement saw huge crowds surround the Legislative Yuan in protest after then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), who was a convener of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee, proclaimed at the opening of a meeting of the committee that the agreement had passed out of committee review because the deadline for review completion had expired.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“While substantial review would be acceptable, filing a draft ‘away for reference’ is problematic,” Lai said.
While the proposed legislation would require lawmakers’ approval for a draft version of any agreement before it is officially signed, the official signed version could be “filed for reference” with the Legislative Yuan and automatically take effect after the deadline for completing a review expires, even though there could be substantial differences from the version approved by the legislature, he said.
“If the legislature demands revisions [to an agreement], negotiations can continue, but China will not necessarily accept the legislature’s demands in the final version,” Lai said.
Any legislative requirements that certain measures be taken before specific sectors are opened up could also “disappear” if the final version of the agreement is only “filed for reference,” he said.
The draft also fails to clearly define how the executive branch should evaluate and report on potential effects of an agreement, another key Sunflower demand, Lai said.
While the original “civil society” version of supervisory regulations proposed by activists would allow the legislature to reject the government’s evaluation and force public hearing if evaluations by civic groups defer substantially from the government’s report, the lack of clear standards in the DPP’s draft proposals would lead to an empty “essay contest” between government ministries, he said.
Chung Yuan University law professor Hsu Wei-chun (徐偉群) said the bill lacks clear guidelines on how the government should hold public hearings and explain its negotiating stance to the public, while the civil society version mandates that a consultative committee of civic activists participate in the actual negotiation process.
“The DPP draft legislation treats publicity and public relations as ‘civic participation,’” Hsu said.
The academic said the DPP had degraded national sovereignty by using the “Taiwan area” and “Mainland area” to refer relations between Taiwan and China, and for presenting its proposal as a supplement to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), which is premised on eventual unification.
Sunflower movement spokesman Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) said the DPP’s draft also fails to mandate that the service trade agreement — as well as a new trade in goods agreement under negotiation — be subject to the new standards.
The proposal also fails to require more rigorous review of any political pact that could possibly influence national sovereignty, Lin said.
“Of all that we demanded in the Sunflower movement, the only thing that was actually realized was that review of the service in trade agreement was put on hold until new supervisory articles could be passed,” he said. “If the supervisory articles are passed, but the new standards are not used for the service in trade pact and trade in goods pact, then what in the world is the point of this proposed law?”
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