The New Power Party (NPP) yesterday said that it fully supports prioritizing the review of a draft bill on ill-gotten party assets at a special legislative session starting today, but added that it is against reviewing draft amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) that would implement a flexible weekly day off policy.
The party said it will give “100 percent support” to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) agenda that prioritizes reviewing the draft bill on party assets.
“Dealing with ill-gotten party assets has been a public issue for years and it is an important part of transitional justice. However, the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] has used different tactics to defend its assets and boycott legislative reviews when public opinion was clear on the issue,” NPP Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) said.
Photo: CNA
NPP Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) criticized the KMT’s participation at a cross-party negotiation yesterday, saying KMT caucus whip Lin Te-fu (林德福) was late and refused to discuss the session’s agenda, while threatening to file numerous motions to paralyze the special session to block the review of the draft bill on party assets.
“No one believes that the KMT will give up its assets. The cross-party negotiations showed that the KMT is resolute in protecting its assets,” Hsu wrote on Facebook.
The NPP said it wanted to exclude draft amendments to the labor act from the session agenda to delay the review until the next legislative session.
While the Executive Yuan’s proposed amendments to the act plan to implement a five-day workweek with one regular day off and a flexible “rest day” — on which employers could ask employees to work — the NPP has proposed a five-day workweek with two mandatory days off.
“There are workers’ rights advocates staging a hunger strike outside the Legislative Yuan, which was apparently caused by a lack of communication in the legislative process,” Hsu said.
If the DPP insists on reviewing the proposed amendments, it should at least include amendments proposed by other parties, NPP Executive Director Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said.
“Although the DPP was not in sync with the NPP [in dropping the review], DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) promised to review the amendments proposed by the Executive Yuan, the NPP and the People First Party,” Hsu said.
Huang said the NPP seeks to put a draft revision of the legislature’s consent mechanism about the appointment of government officials on the special session’s agenda.
“The proposed revision is critical for judicial reform, because the legislative consent mechanism needs to be revised so that a thorough review system of the appointment of the Judicial Yuan president, vice president and justices can be put in place,” Huang said.
“The NPP will urge other parties to put the draft revision on the session’s agenda,” Huang said.
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