The alliance, named Citizen Watch, intended to launch a movement for citizens to scrutinize the performance of the Legislative Yuan. Current participants of the alliance include the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union, Judicial Reform Foundation and National Union of Taiwan Women's Associations.
Citizen Watch would first push the Legislative Yuan to set up video cameras so that the public could watch in real time how legislators acted during sessions and represented the people, making the legislative process transparent, said Ku Chung-hwa, a National Chengchi University sociology professor and the group's convener.
Ku, an advocate of parliamentary reform, called on civic groups to join Citizen Watch Jan. 23, after Taiwanese lawmakers made headlines Jan. 19, the last day of that session, with a fight on the legislative floor, due to lawmakers from ruling and opposition parties refusing to compromise on a draft amendment regarding the organization of the Central Election Commission and the stalling of other important bills on the agenda, including the government budget proposal for 2007.
Kao Cheng-yan, a Citizen Watch member and professor of computer science at National Taiwan University, said in the CNA report that legislators' behavior was even more important in light of the upcoming elections. According to the new electoral system, the number of legislative seats will be halved and there will be only one representative chosen for each electoral district.
At a ceremony marking the alliance's founding, Academia Sinica Honorary President Lee Yuan-tseh criticized the country's lawmakers for being negligent in their duty to work for the good of the country. He expressed his hope that Citizen Watch could help "keep good legislators in their positions and oust bad ones," the report quoted him as saying.
In an April 27 statement, Citizen Watch described its movement as targeting legislators' conduct inside and outside the Legislative Yuan, including their voting records on acts concerning public interests, thus providing information for people's reference before going to the ballot box. The group would also use new information and communications technology as a tool to track bills that had been introduced to the Legislative Yuan.
While efforts have been made by civic groups to observe legislation and related affairs in the past two decades, oversight was not done cooperatively and for the long term. Citizen Watch, however, would push for parliamentary reform "by collective movement and from a professional perspective," it stated.
In South Korea, the Citizens' Coalition for the 2000 General Election published a blacklist of allegedly corrupt politicians, which resulted in a large number of incumbent lawmakers losing their seats, which helped inspire the movement here, according to Citizen Watch.
In related news, Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng, a Kuomintang member, blamed both the opposition KMT and ruling Democratic Progressive Party for delaying the government budget bills, the Chinese-language Liberty Times reported April 27.
For two consecutive sessions, bills on the government budget were prevented from being reviewed as the opposition-controlled Procedure Committee insisted that the KMT's CEC amendment be dealt with before deliberation of the budget bills took place. According to Article 51 of the ROC Budget Act, the Legislature should complete the reviewing of budget bills one month before the start of each fiscal year January 1.
Serious deadlock between the two parties led to legislators brawling on the legislative floor each time the CEC bill was put to a first vote, Wang said. He blasted a few DPP lawmakers for violating meeting regulations and failing to comply with the party's majority when dealing with the CEC bill.
Wang also criticized the KMT for failing to acknowledge the difficulties in passing the controversial bill, in which more than 70 items required a vote. "The problem cannot simply be solved by summoning the police," Wang was quoted as saying in the Liberty Times report.
Write to June Tsai at june@mail.gio.gov.tw