The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus is planning to call two extraordinary legislative sessions after the current session ends on July 15 to clear some major bills, such as those dealing with ill-gotten party assets and promoting transitional justice.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus protested the passage late last month of the Local Government Act (地方制度法) amendments requiring speakers and deputy speakers of local councils to be elected by open ballots by pronouncing that they would stop partaking in cross-caucus negotiations.
Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) has since attempted to convene a cross-caucus negotiation several times, but to no avail.
After DPP lawmakers conducted a committee review of the bill dealing with ill-gotten party assets on Wednesday last week, in the face of criticism by KMT lawmakers, who later staged a walk-out, the KMT caucus said that it would propose more than1,000 motions to obstruct the passage of the budget bills on state-run enterprises.
DPP caucus director-general Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) on Friday quoted the caucus meeting resolution as saying that the DPP would call two extraordinary sessions, if needed, in response to the KMT caucus’ possible obstruction, which might take up to 90 hours to process.
The caucus could call an extraordinary session, following the legislature’s scheduled recess starting on July 15, that would take place from July 18 to July 29, Wu said, adding that another extraordinary session could be called in August after Su returns from a trip to Japan from Aug. 1 to Aug. 4.
Wu said that the draft act dealing with ill-gotten party assets, transitional justice promotion and regulation of distant fisheries are all legislation that the caucus considers crucial and expects to pass in this legislative session.
KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Te-fu (林德福) said the KMT would not be able to stop the DPP, which has a majority in the legislature and is free to call extraordinary sessions as many times as it wishes.
Howeve, he said that the KMT would not agree to participate in cross-caucus negotiations as the DPP now relies entirely on “majoritarian violence.”
New Power Party caucus convener Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said the NPP would hope that during the planned extraordinary sessions, in addition to the said bills, proposed amendments to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) concerning the campaigning and the threshold for initiating recalls and the amendment bill to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) concerning the lowering of the threshold to hold a referendum could also be cleared.
People First Party (PFP) caucus director-general Chen Yi-chieh (陳怡潔) said that bills to be processed in the extraordinary sessions should not be limited to those proposed by the DPP to whip up political feuds.
Draft acts calling for equality among ethnic groups and for Aboriginal transitional justice proposed by the PFP caucus should also be dealt with, she said.
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