Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers yesterday said that before backing a legislative speaker, they would assess candidates’ support for transparency and oversight reforms.
In Saturday’s election, no party secured a majority in the 113-member Legislative Yuan, the first time since 2004, with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) winning 51 seats, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) 52 and the TPP eight.
The new batch of lawmakers are to be sworn in on Feb. 1 and elect a legislative speaker.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
TPP legislator-elect Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) told a news conference in Taipei that the party’s caucus would ask speakership hopefuls to promise to push bills amending the Act Governing the Legislative Yuan’s Power (立法院職權行使法) before the legislature goes into recess at the end of May.
Specifically, the amendments should stipulate penalties for officials found to have made false statements during hearings and bar government agencies from refusing legislators’ requests to access documents they keep, Huang said.
The act states that agencies may reject lawmakers’ requests to access certain documents if they have a legitimate reason, but does not say what constitutes a legitimate reason.
Legislators should have greater authority in confirming presidential nominations or those proposed by the Cabinet, so that they are not simply “rubber-stamped” by what was tantamount to the “legislative department” of the DPP, Huang said.
Safeguards should be established to prohibit legislators from questioning officials, or sponsoring or reviewing bills if doing so would constitute a conflict of interest, especially if the bill is related to their family business, he said.
A legislative speaker should be required to give a detailed account of how they spent their stipend and not be allowed to label such expenses as “sensitive” or “classified” information, he added.
If the DPP or KMT speakership candidates are afraid to tackle such issues, then why would they want to be speaker, he said.
Regarding whether Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫?) of the DPP, who was re-elected on Saturday, or KMT legislator-elect Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who is expected to run for speaker, would make an ideal ally, TPP legislator-elect Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) said the TPP would first hear candidates’ response to the party’s proposals before deciding who to back.
On whether the TPP caucus would require all of its legislators to vote for the same speaker candidate or let them vote at will, she said it would “of course” be the former.
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