Several Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers urged Cabinet officials to consider lawmakers’ opinions before launching major policies, saying that could minimize the fallout from controversial bills and help rebuild people’s trust in the party.
After the party suffered several losses in last month’s local elections, Premier William Lai (賴清德) on Friday last week presented a review by the Executive Yuan of the administration’s performance since the DPP administration took over on May 20, 2016.
Due to inadequate communication with the legislature, the administration’s policies have failed to reflect public opinion, which contributed to people losing confidence in the party, the report said.
Asked for comment, DPP Legislator Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said that communication between the Cabinet and the Legislative Yuan left room for improvement.
Having been elected by their local constituencies, most lawmakers are sensitive to the public’s reactions when new policies are introduced, Chuang said, adding that consulting with lawmakers before implementing policies would facilitate the enforcement of new regulations.
Administration officials and lawmakers look at policy from different perspectives, he added.
Over the past two years, the Cabinet has pushed through many policies without considering lawmakers’ opinions, Chuang said.
The president should lead the government in preparing for the consequences of new policies, especially policies that greatly affect people’s lives, instead of just managing political results, he added.
The government’s structure, which is neither a presidential nor a parliamentary system, creates a communication gap between the administration and lawmakers no matter which party is in control, DPP Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said.
Increasing training for politically appointed officials could diminish the effect of the gap, making them more sensitive to public opinion and able to adjust policies with greater agility, Cheng said, encouraging officials to ask lawmakers about potential issues stemming from policies.
There are legislative committees that correspond to each Executive Yuan agency, so the key is to consider how they can be used to boost communication, DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said.
When a government agency finalizes a bill, it should first send the draft to be reviewed by the corresponding legislative committee, instead of forwarding it to the Executive Yuan and then to the legislature, she added.
Lawmakers should be given the chance to comment on a bill before it is announced by the Executive Yuan and reported by the media, she said, adding that a misguided bill cannot be redressed once the public objects to it.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,