Ahead of the third anniversary of the Sunflower movement, a coalition of democracy advocates yesterday called on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to honor its pledge to pass a cross-strait oversight bill that has been awaiting review for several months.
A number of protesters rallied in front of the DPP headquarters in Taipei, calling on President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and other party leaders to attend an anniversary event to be held at the legislature on Saturday.
The event, scheduled to begin at 7pm, will call for the implementation of a regulatory mechanism for cross-strait negotiations.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The Sunflower movement refers to a protest that began on March 18, 2014.
The trigger was the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government’s swift passage of a cross-strait trade-in-services agreement. Protesters stormed the legislature and occupied its main chamber for weeks.
Then-legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) agreed to the protesters’ demand that an oversight mechanism for cross-strait agreements be instituted before the pact’s passage.
Then-DPP chairperson Tsai issued a statement promising to enact legislation that would institutionalize an oversight mechanism for cross-strait negotiations.
“The Legislative Yuan must pass a complete set of laws to ensure that the executive branch of the government acts in accordance with public demands and principles of transparency [when negotiating with China],” the statement said.
However, plans to legislate for the oversight mechanism were shelved during the last legislative session, Economic Democracy Union secretary-general Chen Kuan-yu (陳冠宇) said.
DPP lawmakers proposed a number of bills for the mechanism during the session, but all the proposals were incorporated into a draft bill proposed by the DPP caucus, which was listed as a priority bill, but its review was never scheduled.
“The bill is still a priority for this session, but its review has not been arranged,” Chen said.
The union, which consists of Taiwan Democracy Watch, Taiwan Association of University Professors, Taiwan Association for Human Rights and dozens of other organizations, urged the DPP to complete the legislation during this legislative session and to involve all legislative committees in its review, instead of asking a single committee to do it.
“The oversight bill is not just about internal administration, but also involves national defense and taxes, so we want the legislature to review the bill more rigorously, preferably by a joint review with all the legislative committees,” Chen said.
The union has invited all members of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee, which is responsible for reviewing the bill, to participate in the anniversary event and explain their plans to complete the legislation.
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