On the last day of the extended legislative session on Friday last week, the Legislative Yuan, with a slight majority held by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), continued to refuse to review the government’s annual budget for this year, which is already overdue.
It was the first time in Taiwan’s constitutional history that the government budget was not reviewed in its supposed legislative session. Instead, the opposition rushed to pass three controversial bills, which many people have criticized as self-serving.
Since the Executive Yuan submitted its annual budget proposal to the Legislative Yuan in August last year, until Friday last week, 155 days have gone by, but the KMT and the TPP have continued to boycott reviewing the budget by blocking it at the Procedure Committee.
Instead, a KMT-proposed amendment to the Organic Act of the Legislative Yuan (立法院組織法) was passed, which would allow the salaries of legislator’s aides to be classified as “lawmaker subsidies.” This has been criticized as “decriminalizing the misuse of legislative aide funds” and excusing lawmakers who are facing allegations of embezzlement by fraudulently claiming aides’ salaries.
KMT-proposed amendments to the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例) were also passed, no longer recognizing the China Youth Corps as a party affiliate, and potentially leading to previously frozen assets and real estate of the corps being released. This has also been criticized as effectively returning over NT$40 billion (US$1.27 billion) in ill-gotten assets during the martial law period to the KMT.
Another KMT-proposed bill passed was an amendment to the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法), which loosens license holder requirements and allows TV channel owners to continue operating under their original licensed channel during the course of litigation or petition. Some see this as an attempt to allow CTi News, a pro-China TV channel that was denied a license renewal in 2020 due to lack of “internal controls,” to regain its old cable channel.
Moreover, the rushed bills were even more controversial after the KMT and the TPP tactically skipped legislative procedures by fast-tracking them directly to a second reading — bypassing committee reviews, public consultations and cross-party negotiations — followed by a third reading through simple majority voting in a plenary session.
The expedited legislative procedure, intended for timely plenary floor action with unanimous consent for emergency bills such as disaster aid, has been selectively used by the KMT and the TPP to avoid in-depth scrutiny and opposition as well as public debate on controversial bills.
Aside from those three bills, KMT-proposed amendments passed by circumventing substantial deliberation in this legislative session also included changes to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) and the suspension of cuts to civil servants’ pensions. Amendments to the Offshore Islands Development Act (離島建設條例) allowing “Free Trade Zones” to be established on outlying islands have also been fast-tracked to a second reading.
Conversely, regarding resolutions proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the KMT and the TPP arbitrarily rejected them at the initial Procedure Committee and denied referral to committee reviews. Such rejected bills include the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion eight-year special defense budget, blocked 10 times from entering the legislative agenda, bills to require lawmakers and elected representatives to be transparent and accountable to the public when visiting China, as well as a resolution to condemn China’s coercive military drills around Taiwan.
While majority rule is a foundational principle of constitutional democracy, it should also be balanced by respect for minority voices and upheld by the rule of law, to prevent “tyranny of the majority.” However, this legislative session has shown that the KMT and the TPP have repeatedly denied the public their right to hear government officials and the DPP (the legislative minority) the chance to explain their policy or budget proposals.
The opposition party lawmakers have abandoned their constitutional duties of openly reviewing important budgets and bills that serve the general public (such as welfare and development programs, and national defense), and have become obedient voters dictated by their party caucuses, focused on fast-tracking self-serving bills and offering additional benefits for select groups of people.
The next legislative session is expected to commence on Feb. 24, after the Lunar New Year holidays, but it is doubtful that the KMT and the TPP would suddenly learn that a healthy democracy does not operate solely on the “tyranny of the majority” in the Legislative Yuan.
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