It is to be expected that with our Constitution in operation for only six years we have encountered numerous difficulties in our experience. This is inevitable. Other democracies like Great Britain and the U. S. have not been without difficulties in their constitutional development, and it is only after the lapse of long years that their difficulties have gradually been overcome by amendments, customs, etc. Certainly it will also be possible for us to solve our own problems through trial and error as the years go by.
As we know, the relations between the executive and the legislature can be approached from various angles such as the structure of government, the separation of powers, etc. The executive and the legislature stand, for example, in a quite different position in relation to each other in concluding a treaty from their relative position in making a decision on the budget. Again, their relations in regard to these two matters are vastly different from their relations in the exercise of the legislative power. For our present purposes, we shall confine ourselves to this latter all-important question, e. i., the executive legislative relationships in legislation.
It is clear that the legislative power is vested in the Legislative Yuan under our Constitution. This can be seen from Art. 62 of the Constitution which states that the Legislative Yuan shall he composed of popularly elected members to exercise the legislative power on behalf of the people. However, questions arise when we consult other constitutional provisions. Art. 58 states that the Executive Yuan may submit bills to the Legislative Yuan. Again, Art. 87 provides that the Examination Yuan may, with respect to matters under its charge, present bills to the Legislative Yuan. As interpreted by the Council of Grand Justices, the Control Yuan may also introduce bills to the Legislative Yuan. All these point to the conclusion that the legislators do not have a monopoly of the initiative in legislation.
Of course, legislation can not be placed in a tight compartment all by itself. It can not be separated from executive functions. It follows that it is quite proper for the executive branch to submit bills to the legislative, as laid down in Art. 58 of our Constitution. However, as there is not yet a satisfactory way to study such bills in the Legislative Yuan, many difficult questions arise. The Legislative Yuan generally submits all government bills to its standing committees as the first stage to study them. Although by virtue of Art. 67 of the Constitution government officials may be invited to attend the committee meetings for consultation, it has become the custom of the government officials to leave a meeting immediately after they have presented their views. Thus the committees, while studying the bills, do not have the benefit of the full counsel of the government agencies which have introduced those bills. Consequently, it often happens that the conclusions reached by the committees do not agree with the spirit of the original versions of the bills. As a rule, the conclusions reached by the committees would be adopted at the plenary meetings of the Legislative Yuan without much change. The result is that the bills adopted by the Legislative Yuan do not always meet the needs of the agencies which have submitted them. At times the bills so adopted would even increase some difficulties to those who are required to carry them out.
Moreover, another difficult situation would emerge if the bills are presented by the Examination and Control Yuans. For these two Yuans to introduce bills to the legislature and yet maintain their independent position as conceived by the Constitution is a unique feature of our government. Bills in general are related to the budget. But the budget is within the power of the executive. If the Examination and Control Yuans do not, therefore, reach prior agreement with the Executive Yuan in regard to the budgetary questions which may be found in the bills submitted by them, the bills are impossible of implementation even if they are adopted by the legislature. A good example is furnished by the Regulations Governing the Planning Board of the Classification of Public Service initiated by the Examination Yuan which, though adopted by the Legislative Yuan, has thus far not been put into practice. This is also true of the bills introduced by the individual legislators.
Furthermore, the bills introduced by the Examination and Control Yuans are for the most part connected with matters which fall under the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the government. On the one hand, the legislature should try its best to get those bills passed as a sign of respect for the independent status of the Examination and Control Yuans. On the other, it has to study the bills carefully and make the necessary changes in order to give effect to executive functions. The Legislative Yuan, therefore, often finds itself in the awkward position of seeking to reconcile the irreconcilable. A considerable amount of divided opinion was discovered between the executive on the one hand and the examination and control branches on the other when the legislature studied the bills submitted by these latter, two branches such as the Regulations Governing the Civil Service Examination, the Regulations Governing the Appointment of Civil Servants, the Auditing Law, the Law of Control, etc.
If the separation of powers into three branches has given rise to a number of difficulties in the exercise of the legislative power, the difficulties have been increased under our Constitution by the addition of two new branches, examination and control, both of which are allowed to present bills to the legislature. The executive and legislative branches become further removed from each other on account of Art. 75 of the Constitution which states that the legislators may not concurrently hold government posts. The institutional defects in the separation of the executive branch from the legislative as formulated in the U. S. constitution have been greatly remedied by subsequent developments, namely, a wealth of customs built up in history, the operation of the political party system, the practice for the President to confer at the White House from time to time with the party leadership and appropriate committee chairmen of the Congress, and what not. If we see fit to follow U. S. footsteps in this respect, we can also remedy the institutional flaws and shortcomings under our Constitution so that legislation and execution may not be the work of separate branches of government which cancel each other out.
Indeed, there are quite a few articles in our Constitution which can serve as the basis for the coordination of the executive and legislative authority. It all depends on how best we shall make use of them. Art. 71 states that at the meetings of the Legislative Yuan the presidents of the various Yuans and the heads of the various ministries and commissions concerned may be in attendance to present their opinions. If the responsible ministers should frequently attend the meetings of the Legislative Yuan according to this article to make the necessary explanation of the bills they submit, it would immensely help harmonize the differences of opinion between executive and legislature. Both branches were at times at variance with each other primarily because they did not make the best use of this article.
Again, it is stipulated in Art. 67 of the Constitution that the various committees of the Legislative Yuan may invite government officials and private individuals concerned to be present at their meetings for consultation. This affords another opportunity to coordinate our executive-legislative relations, if we know how to utilize it.
Since 1928 a political vice-minister has been appointed for each of our government departments. Apparently this is copied from the British system of parliamentary undersecretary in a government department whose time is mostly spent in Parliament. That our political Vice-ministers did not fulfil their duties that way in the pre-Constitutional days was excusable because there was no equivalent of Parliament in China. But today with the institution of the Legislative Yuan within the constitutional framework there is no more reason for the political vice-ministers to stay away from legislative functions; otherwise there should be no room for the existence of the political vice-ministers at all.
Moreover, it is provided in Art. 57 of the Constitution that the Executive Yuan has the obligation to present to the Legislative Yuan its administrative policies and its administrative reports. This is also a good medium through which the two branches can work together. It is, of course, true that some good traditions have already been established in a general way in the implementation of this article. But the achievements made thus far are rather inadequate from the standpoint of the executive-legislative relations. Further improvements are badly needed. It seems that for the executive to report to the legislature only once in a session or a year is not enough. The executive should be called upon to do so any time there are important decisions to make. Indeed, this is not merely a good occasion for the executive to state its policies, but also a good opportunity for it to enlist the support of the lawmakers by making them familiar with its policies. The same article further states that the legislators have the right to interpellate the premier and his cabinet ministers during the sessions. In the question-and-answer process a good deal of understanding can be brought about between the two branches. Though the interpellation has thus far not worked well, its importance in the future cannot be over-estimated.
In addition to the above-mentioned constitutional provisions which can be utilized to improve the situation, our attitude toward the question at issue is equally important. On the side of the executive, people should not make the mistake of thinking that the circumstance work in legislation is nothing but a nuisance. The essence of modern democratic legislatures is their function of reviewing government policy. Discussion is the core of democracy. A government which insists on oversimplification and permits no debate in the orderly legislative process ceases to be a democracy. We have yet to learn the art of the easy give-and-take which marks a successful executive-legislative relationship.
Meanwhile, the executive should not suppose that if its personnel are required to appear before, the meetings of the Legislative Yuan, that is a waste of time. Needless to say, the most important task of the executive branch of the government is to see to it that its policies prevail. Generally this has to do with the making of laws and of the budget, which is the work of the legislature. The executive leaders would, therefore, have everything to gain and nothing to lose, if they could attend the meetings of the Legislative Yuan.
It seems superfluous to point out that in Great Britain and France the cabinet ministers make it their main task to spend their time in the legislature. This is, of course, a striking feature of cabinet government under which the government leaders themselves are lawmakers. It is different from our institution in that our legislators can not concurrently hold government posts. However, it has become an established practice in France that the cabinet ministers who are not concurrently legislators, as has sometimes been the case, may also attend the meetings of the law-making body. There were even more instances of this kind in Germany under the Weimar Constitution. This serves to show that though the premier and cabinet ministers under our Constitution are not concurrently legislators, they may attend the legislative sessions as well and that if they do so, there are precedents in other countries.
On the side of the legislative branch, people should also take a proper attitude toward this crucial question. Where the government is responsible to the legislature, most bills introduced in the legislature are government bills which are subject to debate in the legislature. Take, for instance, the British parliament in which more than 90 per cent of the measures introduced are government bills, while private bills are far and in between. Although our system of government is different from that of Great Britain, it would be advantageous for us to enable the executive to present as many bills as possible. Also, it would be advisable to have the appropriate government agency to prepare the draft if the individual legislators want to submit a bill, as is the case in France. It may be recalled that at the sixth session of the Legislative Yuan its Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution asking the Foreign Ministry to revise the Regulations Governing the Issuance of Passports, and that thereupon the Foreign Ministry, acting on that resolution, prepared a new draft of regulations and sent it to the Legislative Yuan for deliberation. That was a good example to follow.
It is important that full opportunity should be accorded to the executive to express its views on a bill under discussion in the legislature in order that, if adopted, it may be carried out without let or hindrance. Despite Arts. 67 and 71 of our Constitution, we have not made the most of this opportunity owing to the fact that it has become the habit of the executive leaders to leave a legislative meeting immediately following their first speeches. There is no wonder that the bills passed do not always meet, the needs of the executive. It would, therefore, be greatly helpful, if the executive personnel should stay at the legislative meetings for constant consultation. It must be remembered that so long as the executive chiefs are confined to the presentation of their views and are not involved in debate, there is no danger of their interfering with the legislative power of the lawmakers.
At last but not the least, we may do well to improve the manner in which the right of interpellation is exercised. For all the good results accomplished at times in interpellation, much remains to be done. As we know, our system of interpellation is on the British model. Under this system a legislator has the right to question a minister or the policy of the government without going so far as to make a charge or complaint or to submit his own views or proposals. It is unfortunate that most of our interpellations made in the past have not been kept within bounds. Specifically, they have not been consistent with the Parliamentary Procedure of the Legislative Yuan which states that the making of interpellation shall not go beyond the scope of making clear the point in question. Undoubtedly this is a matter of no small importance. We must straighten it out, if we are to put our executive-legislative relations on a smooth, firm basis.