The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday decided to shelve proposed legislation that would give elected officials full control over their stipends, saying it would wait for a consensus to be reached before acting.
KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) last week proposed amendments to the Organic Act of the Legislative Yuan (立法院組織法) and the Regulations on Allowances for Elected Representatives and Subsidies for Village Chiefs (地方民意代表費用支給及村里長事務補助費補助條例), which would give legislators and councilors the freedom to use their allowances without providing invoices for reimbursement.
The proposal immediately drew criticism, amid reports that several legislators face possible charges of embezzling fees intended to pay assistants in contravention of the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例).
Photo: Taipei Times
One of the proposed changes states that how legislators use their allowance falls outside the scope of the act.
The legislature on Friday passed the bills on to the International Administration Committee, and the Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee for deliberation.
Chen’s proposed amendments state that legislators may directly employ a certain number of assistants, who would leave or remain in office together with them.
Expenses such as health checkups, recreational activities and other costs that employers are required to cover under the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) would be subsidized through a budget allocated by the Legislative Yuan, the bill says.
The subsidies would be dispersed to legislators and would not require receipts for reimbursement, it adds.
The Democratic Progressive Party said the matter should be handled through an open, democratic discussion, instead of rushing through the process and sending it straight to a second reading.
The nature of publicly funded assistants for elected officials needs fuller debate, it added.
Most legislators who participated in the KMT’s caucus meeting yesterday agreed that the amendments should not be rushed, a source who attended the meeting said.
Some legislators thought the laws could be amended, but not in this way, while others thought the proposed amendments should include a “sunrise clause” that they would not take effect until after 2028, so that they would not raise questions about incumbent legislators, the source said.
The next legislative elections are to take place in 2028.
If the issue cannot be resolved through a gradual, consensus-building approach, the KMT caucus would rather withdraw the proposal altogether, the person added.
Later yesterday, the KMT caucus said the meeting was held to listen to opinions and no resolution was made, adding that no decision was made on “suspending the proposal” or “deciding not to suspend the proposal.”
The caucus would continue to listen to opinions from all sectors of society, communicate fully with KMT headquarters and reach a consensus with all members of the caucus before making a final decision, it said.
Meanwhile, the Legislative Yuan’s Congressional Assistants Union is planning a protest outside the legislature on Friday, calling on Chen to withdraw the proposal.
Union leaders said that if Chen withdraws the proposal before Friday, or if Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) is willing to guarantee that the KMT would not continue with the proposal, they would reconsider their action.
Additional reporting by Lin Hsin-han and Lin Tse-yuan
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