The New Power Party (NPP) yesterday said it will ask other caucuses to accept media participation in the cross-caucus negotiations it convenes, adding that it will send legislation back to the Legislative Yuan if they disagree.
“While we will hold cross-caucus negotiations according to the legislature’s rules, our stance is that the negotiations have to be open and transparent,” NPP caucus convener Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said, pledging to push for legal changes to require live broadcasts of negotiations.
“The negotiations we convene will be open to reporters; anyone who participates should be prepared for that,” he said.
The NPP’s convening of cross-caucus negotiations over the inclusion of doctors in the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) on Thursday drew attention because of the party’s prior opposition to the negotiations, along with conflicting statements over whether the party would consider holding the negotiations behind closed doors.
While the NPP advocates abolishing cross-caucus negotiations in favor of open-floor debate, provisions of the Act Governing the Exercise of Legislative Power (立法院職權行使法) force it to hold negotiations on its proposed legislation if other caucuses raise objections, NPP Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said.
“We are caught in a framework in which if other caucuses have objections, they can drag legislation into cross-caucus negotiations, which are our responsibility to convene. If we do not convene the negotiations, there are no other means for further consideration by the legislature as a whole, so the legislation would get caught in limbo,” he said.
Under the act, an objection raised by at least 10 legislators can force cross-caucus negotiations, with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) agreeing last week that negotiations must take place before any vote is held.
Huang said that due to the difficulty of executing reform, his party’s short-term objective is to force transparency for negotiations that it convenes.
“If other party caucuses do not want to open the negotiations to the media and are not willing to participate, then we will engage in procedural negotiations beforehand,” he said. “If procedural negotiations cannot achieve a consensus, that would also fulfill the Act Governing the Exercise of Legislative Power’s requirements, which I think is a perfectly acceptable result. Whatever they want to say in cross-caucus negotiations will then have to be said in the legislative session.”
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) criticized the NPP for allowing the media in cross-caucus negotiations.
“The proposal to allow live coverage of cross-party negotiation sessions has yet to be passed, therefore meetings should be conducted according to the law,” Ker said. “What the NPP did seemed to only please the media. It is not good.”
Ker said that during the legislative election campaign, the NPP said that cross-party negotiations should be completely abolished, but now it is saying that they should be broadcast, adding: “Whatever they would like to do, they should first propose amendments to the law.”
Ker said that cross-party negotiations are opportunities for smaller parties to persuade larger parties to agree to their proposals, since smaller parties would never win if a legislative proposal is put to a floor vote.
“I am afraid that if media coverage is allowed in cross-party negotiations, lawmakers might not speak out about what they truly think, which would defeat the purpose of such meetings,” Ker said.
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