Plans to live stream Legislative Yuan cross-caucus negotiations drew mixed reactions from civic activists yesterday, with some saying that without deeper reforms, live streaming would only move opaque “black box” negotiations underground.
The legislature agreed to open the negotiations to media for the first time on Tuesday, following earlier promises by Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) to arrange for live Web streaming and the participation of citizen journalists.
“If the results of negotiations continue to have legal force, all that will happen is that the horse-trading part will move to other places we cannot see,” Social Democratic Party spokesman Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) said. “If the negotiations still have legal force, the same small number of people will still be making the decisions — it is just that now they will also have to put on an act in front of the camera.”
Cross-caucus negotiations are often used to decide the final version of controversial legislation, but they have been criticized as being opaque and for undermining the role of legislative committees, because any results are sent to the legislative floor for passage.
Under the Legislative Yuan’s rules, legislation resulting from cross-caucus negotiations is subject to a roll call vote only if at least eight lawmakers raise objections, with most passing unanimously.
Miao said cross-caucus negotiations allow lawmakers to pass the buck on important legislation, avoiding hard votes while allowing key details to be determined by party leaders with little outside input.
She said that decisions made at cross-caucus negotiations should be sent back to legislative committees for a vote.
Separately, Citizen’s Congress Watch executive director Chang Hung-lin (張宏林) said that opening negotiations to the media was symbolically important because cross-caucus negotiations represent an official meeting, all of which should be open under the Act Governing the Exercise of Legislative Power (立法院職權行使法), he said.
“It is no problem if you want to discuss legislation privately over coffee, but legally any official meeting should be open to the public,” he said, adding that it would be impossible to forbid private talks between party leaders.
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