The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus today decided to suspend controversial 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 Regulations on Allowances for Elected Representatives and Subsidies for Chiefs of Village (地方民意代表費用支給及村里長事務補助費補助條例) that would give legislators and local councilors the freedom to use their allowances without providing invoices for reimbursement.
The proposal immediately drew criticism, as there have been several recent instances of lawmakers receiving judicial scrutiny for allegedly embezzling fees intended to pay assistants in contravention of the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例).
Photo: Taipei Times
However, the bill states that how legislators use their allowance falls outside the scope of the act.
On Friday last week, the Legislative Yuan passed the bills on to the International Administration Committee and Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee respectively for deliberation.
Chen’s proposed amendment says that each legislator 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 open, democratic discussion rather than rushed procedures such as sending it straight to a second reading.
The nature of publicly funded assistant fees for elected officials needs fuller debate, it added.
The Legislative Yuan’s Congressional Assistants Union issued a statement opposing any amendments that might weaken the public assistant system and urged lawmakers across party lines to proceed cautiously.
Most legislators who participated in the KMT’s caucus meeting today agreed that the amendments should not be rushed, an insider who attended the meeting said.
Some lawmakers think the laws can be amended, but not in this way, while others think that the bill should not take effect until 2028 so that it would not raise questions about current legislators, the insider said.
If the issue cannot be resolved through a more gradual, consensus-building approach, the caucus would rather withdraw the proposal altogether, the person added.
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