In the previous legislature, then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), while acting as convener to the Internal Administration Committee, attempted to ram the controversial cross-strait service trade agreement through the legislature in 30 seconds.
Chang’s actions released a tsunami of rage. Last week, with the KMT’s example still fresh, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), the committee’s new convener, announced that the draft bill for the management of illicit party assets had cleared the committee review stage and immediately called for an adjournment.
The KMT also launched its own ruse, spearheaded by legislator and committee co-convener Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順). Without any prior consultation, Huang announced that revisions to a cross-strait regulations draft bill had been passed. One can see that waiting for a break in the proceedings, when not all of the other party’s committee members are present, to quickly approve contentious bills has started to become routine.
The legislature’s Rules of Procedure are based on the principles of autonomy and self-governance and were drawn up to uphold the administrative order of the agency, ensure a stable and predictable handling of business, provide a legal basis for the decisionmaking process, ensure that rights and responsibilities are shared equally, reduce instances of conflict and safeguard the rights of individual legislators.
Each legislative committee has an important status and key role to play regarding the preparation of resolutions and for providing a venue for thorough, free and ample discussion of bills.
The Rules of Procedure are focused on setting standards for legislative committee meetings and do not authorize each committee to set its own rules of procedure. There are only four clauses in the supplementary provisions: arrangements for petitions, how attending legislators raise their opinions, self-registration of committee members who want to speak at a meeting and a prohibition on unauthorized observers attending committee meetings.
In addition, the Organic Law of Legislative Committees (立法院各委員會組織法) states that during each meeting of a legislative committee, not only must the organic law be adhered to, but that the legislature’s Rules of Procedure may also be applied, which means that similar rules may be applied, although that is not fully implemented.
In practice, the administration of the official business of the house differs substantially from that of the legislative committees and the rules governing the legislature and the committees are not the same. Furthermore, committees have always shown a lack of respect for the Rules of Procedure, which are frequently interpreted differently by whichever legislator is fulfilling the role of committee convener; and this is the main cause of disputes.
The function of the legislature is to pursue the public interest and execute its procedures according to the powers granted it under the Constitution. Without proper procedural rules, there can be no democracy and serving of the public interest — this is an important principle of parliamentary democracy.
If a resolution is passed by a legislative committee that violates procedural rules, it should be annulled. However, to avoid disputes, it is suggested that the Legislative Yuan clearly defines the rules and procedures pertaining to each committee so that the legislature’s Rules of the Procedure conform to the principles of democracy.
Lo Chuan-hsien is an adjunct professor of law at Central Police University and a former director-general of the Legislative Yuan’s Legislative Bureau.
Translated by Edward Jones
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