The Legislative Yuan has been at a standstill for more than a month because of a quarrel over membership of one of the island's most expensive clubs -- the legislature's Finance Committee. Expensive -- it will cost you around NT$5 million to buy your way in -- but not exclusive; a list of former members reads like a who's who of local fraudsters. Which is why the legislature has been paralyzed. In the process of drawing lots for membership one more lot was found to have been drawn than there were seats. The simple remedy would have been to draw lots again. But the lot-drawing has worked out particularly well for the opposition parties giving them control of the committee, something they could not be sure of retaining it in a second drawing. Result, impasse -- until yesterday.
In the past, the Finance Committee has been under solid KMT control. The opposition winning control this time around led to a number of notorious legislators with links to various interest groups being left outside the door. The KMT wanted to redo the lot-drawing process to give its corrupt politicians one more chance to get their snouts in the trough. Many of these legislators chair some of Taiwan's major conglomerates or own banks and stock brokerages. A good many of them have been indicted for financial crimes.
Participation in the Finance Committee allows lawmakers to manipulate financial legislation. They can also use their positions to pressure financial agencies.
This situation is quite similar to that in the Judiciary Committee. Some legislators indicted for criminal charges have lobbied vigorously to sit on the Judiciary Committee to seek "justice" for themselves. The idea of avoiding a conflict of interests is a stranger to Taiwan's legislature.
Quite a few legislators were involved in the recent scandal at Taiwan Fertilizer -- including the current and previous speakers of the Legislative Yuan. In fact, from central down to local levels, the situations in legislative bodies have more similarities than differences. They are basically funnels to siphon interests, clubs where officials and business people conspire. Elected legislators are in Taiwan the guardians of organized crime groups. Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh's (
Normally, the KMT only applies its party discipline on political dissenters. Disobedience is a sin in the KMT but not corruption. And this is hardly surprising when the KMT -- the island's number three in terms of corporate wealth -- is one of the biggest self-interested parties, with very interesting relationships with its own legislators and the legislature's Finance Committee.
The mass media, which normally serves as a watchdog in democratic countries, has no power to bring about change since these politicians couldn't care less what the media says. On the other hand, the Fourth Estate has not been too successful in finding smoking guns. Few prosecutors take the initiative to investigate leads against legislators and as a result few have been jailed, indeed legislative immunity has made Taiwan's lawmaking body virtually a safe haven for criminals.
But let's face it, these crooks were elected through our votes. Why have we reelected them again and again, even though everybody knows these people are thieves? What kind of government we have depends on the kind of legislature we elect. What kind of legislature we elect depends on what kind of people we are. Do we really deserve the kind of legislators we have now?
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