USED FOR BLOCKING:The opposition parties in the legislature say the KMT has long used the notoriously opaque Procedure Committee to block their proposals
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to answer a call by opposition parties to reform the Procedure Committee by improving its transparency.
“Since the opposition parties — the DPP, the People First Party (PFP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) — have all supported the proposition, the KMT’s position would be crucial. We call for its immediate positive response,” DPP caucus chief secretary Chen Ting-fei (陳庭妃) told a press conference.
The opposition proposed -making all meetings of the Procedure Committee available to the public via real-time online streaming and video-recordings that could be accessed on demand, she said, adding that doing so would not require any amendments to regulations because current laws governing the legislature stipulate that all meetings should be made public.
The proposal would dramatically improve the transparency of the committee, which is notoriously opaque, she said.
The KMT has also long used the committee to block proposals it opposed, Chen said, adding that during the four years of the seventh Legislative Yuan between 2008 and this year, the KMT had blocked 528 proposals a total of 6,159 times in the committee.
The Referendum Act (公民投票法), the Political Party Act (政黨法) and the proposed law on the promotion of a nuclear-free home (非核家園推動法) were among the major proposals blocked, she said.
Chen urged the KMT to respond before the second inter-party negotiation on the issue on Thursday.
The TSU has always called for transparency in the legislature and it does not make sense that the Procedure Committee has been the only legislative committee that is not broadcast to the public, TSU Legislator Lin Shih-chia (林世嘉) said.
PFP legislative caucus whip Lee Tung-hao (李桐豪) said people’s doubts would be reduced if the meetings of the committee were broadcast online.