The scuffles on the legislative floor on Friday last week over the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) forcing controversial legislation through to the next reading were embarrassing for the nation, but they were hardly unprecedented, and it is important not to fixate on them. Far more pernicious things are happening in the background.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus was fiercely opposed to the KMT’s and TPP’s antics. Objections and concerns have been expressed in many quarters, including international academics, the Taiwan Bar Association, local legal academics and the public. Protesters gathered outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Tuesday morning and remain there even now, from an original several hundred to an estimated 8,000 on Tuesday evening to a reported 30,000 yesterday morning.
To appropriate a phrase, 30,000 protesters cannot be wrong. The similarities to the Sunflower movement of almost exactly 10 years ago are striking. That movement in 2014 was a response to the KMT legislative caucus trying to force through a cross-strait service trade agreement and sending the proposed bill directly to a plenary session for its second reading without a substantive review. It caused a collapse in the KMT’s support. That the public would be incensed by political parties so brazenly subverting the democratic process and forcing through unconstitutional legislation is not rocket science. One wonders exactly why the KMT thought it would be a good idea. Is there another hand orchestrating this in the background?
The bills this time seek to significantly expand the power of the Legislative Yuan over the executive branch and challenge the government’s authority over budgets. They would add “contempt of the legislature” to the Criminal Code and strengthen the legislature’s investigative powers, together with its subpoena powers and the ability to impose civil and criminal penalties for noncooperation, and expand the power of opposition legislators to access government documents, including confidential information. They would also allow considerable amounts of public money to be spent on projects other than military preparedness.
Soochow University professor Chen Fang-yu (陳方隅) told Nikkei Asia that he expects the KMT and TPP to oppose military reforms if the legislation is passed; other commentators believe they would also target renewable energy projects and the Indigenous Submarine Program. The Taiwan Bar Association has released a statement saying that the opposition’s “failure to perform its constitutional function of deliberating on laws and budgets not only undermines Taiwan’s democratic foundations, but also violates the fundamental principles of democratic constitutionalism and representative democracy,” and urged lawmakers to “substantively discuss and review” the bills, and “not to destroy the principles of democratic constitutionalism for partisan interests.”
These sentiments were echoed by a group of foreign academics, journalists and politicians on Monday, who called the reform proposals “potentially unconstitutional and a usurpation of political power held by other coequal branches of government.”
The KMT and TPP are saying that the DPP is hypocritically bemoaning its lack of power after having failed to secure a legislative majority in January’s legislative elections. They might be right in saying that the DPP is sore now that the boot is on the other foot. That in no way means that the concerns are unfounded, and it is not the DPP alone that is protesting. These proposals are being dressed up as “legislative reform,” but in reality they risk introducing unconstitutional contradictions that would hobble the functioning of government and obstruct the government’s ability to continue its much-needed military reforms.
This, and the legislative chaos they have caused, will be very much welcomed by the Chinese Communist Party. Is it the invisible hand?
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