A decision to defer two controversial proposals broke a stalemate in the Legislative Yuan yesterday, ending an occupation of the Legislative speaker’s podium by members of opposition parties and delaying an effort by the ruling party to raise barriers to recall campaigns and tighten control over cross-strait agreement oversight plans.
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislators arrived in the chamber early yesterday morning before the meeting’s start time and took over the speaker’s podium. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) later joined the blockade.
The parties placed placards and banners on the floor and podiums, reading: “Birdcage recall act castrates people’s rights to recall,” “Brushing aside the public’s will like plain air makes Ma an emperor” and “Shame on the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party] for amending the law to make it harder for people to recall [elected representatives].”
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The KMT on Friday last week used its majority to place the proposed amendment to recall regulations on yesterday’s discussion agenda, aiming for its passage.
The proposed amendment to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), which is to require petitioners to provide extra documents for campaigns, was meant to be deliberated in the Internal Administration Committee before the KMT motioned and launched a floor vote for a direct second reading at the end of last year.
The timing of the move is as controversial now as when it was voted on for a direct second reading last year.
At the time, KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) was the target of a public recall campaign, while several KMT legislators are likewise facing public calls to oust them from the office in a campaign called the “appendectomy project” (“Appendix” is a pun on the shorthand for “blue legislators” in Mandarin).
Also on yesterday’s discussion agenda was the KMT’s motion to reconsider the proposal of having the cross-strait agreement oversight draft bills referred to the standing committee for deliberation.
Once the reconsideration was vetoed on the legislative floor, the oversight bills would be handed to this week’s Internal Administration Committee for deliberation.
KMT Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), who has been mocked as “half-minute Chung (半分忠)” after he rammed through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 30 seconds in March, which touched off the student-led Sunflower movement, is the chairman of this week’s committee meeting.
The KMT would thereby benefit from the procedural setting if the bills are discussed this week.
The cross-party negotiation that took place in the afternoon ended the opposition’s stalling with the KMT agreeing to postpone the two proposals.
Separately yesterday, civil groups Citizens 1985 and Citizen’s Congress Watch (CCW) denounced the Legislative Yuan for refusing to let them sit in on the floor meeting.
The CCW said in a public statement that the civil groups’ attempt to sit in for concerns about the raising of the recall campaign document threshold was blocked by the legislature’s administrators, who reportedly said no civic groups were allowed to sit in yesterday “because the speaker’s podium was being occupied.”
The groups said the reason given by the agency “is nowhere to be seen in the regulations on people’s rights to audit,” and said it showed that the legislature’s Conference Department had overstepped its authority.
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