A legislative proceeding yesterday to refer bills to their respective committees for review was stalled as the two major parties were locked in a battle to block each other’s bills.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus first blocked all non-KMT bills from being referred to their to respective committees for review to protest against the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) labor policy, and the DPP caucus retaliated by using the same tactic.
The two parties’ actions effectively stalled a review of major bills, including the New Power Party’s (NPP) same-sex marriage bill.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
The controversy over proposed amendments to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) relating to weekly days off and the scrapping of seven national holidays continued to be a major cause of yesterday’s interparty struggle.
Before the two sides locked themselves up for a cross-caucus negotiation, the legislative process overseeing the referring of bills proposed by lawmakers and government agencies to respective committees for substantive review saw the KMT caucus raising objections and demanding that a majority of the bills be returned to the Procedure Committee.
DPP lawmakers responded by returning the bills proposed by the KMT.
The bills could be returned to the Procedure Committee if eight or more lawmakers undersigned a motion to do so; however, the motion could be shot down by a successful vote against it.
Since the quorom needed for a vote is one-third of the legislative body of 113, and lawmakers are usually not present for the first reading, proposals to return the bills to the Procedure Committee more often than not get processed without difficulty.
NPP Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) criticized the KMT caucus’ move on Facebook, attaching to his post a screen-grab of KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) Facebook post on Saturday — when Taipei held its gay pride parade — calling for mutual respect and elimination of discrimination and prejudice, expressing her hopes for “public conversation based on real equality and respect,” and saying that she supports “all of those [couples] who love each other.”
Following the KMT caucus’ action, Hung’s Facebook post was flooded with comments accusing her of paying lip service to the cause.
The DPP, who has advocated same-sex marriage, has yet to submit its own bill.
At the Procedure Committee meeting, the KMT and DPP caucuses traded accusations of assault during the tumultuous committee meetings last week and requested that the “perpetrators” be sent to the Discipline Committee for evaluation and, if necessary, discipline.
KMT Legislator Lin Te-fu (林德福) was photographed holding DPP Legislator Wu Kun-yuh (吳焜裕) in a headlock at a meeting of the Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee over the labor law amendment on Wednesday; on Thursday, it was DPP Legislator Su Chen-ching (蘇震清) who was seen holding KMT Legislator Arthur Chen (陳宜民) in a throat-lock at the committee meeting.
The two parties could not reach a consensus on which caucus’ proposal is to be placed higher on the legislative agenda, so the draft of the agenda was deferred for handling by the general assembly.
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