The News Lens international edition is sponsored by Tutor A B C
KMT Chairman Eric Chu has called on congress reform and proposed an open and transparent negotiation system. But the Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) and the DPP have already brought up several main proposals over 1,551 times in the past and none of them were passed by lawmakers from the KMT despite reaching a legislative majority.

The CCW proposed to reform congress, but was blocked 700 times.

At the end of the last legislative session, the CCW held a press conference and pointed out the number of the congressional reform bills brought up but then sent back to the Procedure Committee, including “legalize the committee hearing procedure," was returned to the procedure committee 105 times, “make the legislature work in a transparent and accountable way between parties," 72 times and “establish the congress TV channel," 85 times. This comes to a total of 700 returns. The CCW says the congressional reform is nearly impossible to be put to a vote.

Zhang Hong-lin, CEO of the CCW, points out that those who blocked the bills are mostly KMT legislators, including Wang Jin-ping, Hung Shiu-chu and the Whip Fei Hung-tai. They have all refused to sign the pledge to show their commitment to reforming congress.

Chen Jian-fu, executive council member, also highlights that the cases civil groups and journalists of independent media were refused entrance of were those where KMT legislators convened the assembly.

The DPP’s proposal for congress reformation was blocked 851 times.

ETtoday reports, DPP legislators held a press conference on October 29 and questioned Chu’s congressional reform. DPP legislator Huang Wei-zhe says that now the KMT is in control of the congress. He will wait and see whether Chu will carry out the reform or not.

Legislator Li Jun-yi says, the KMT proposes to have the chief of the Legislative Yuan maintain neutrality, empower the congress with investigation rights, establish a committee hearing procedure, make the process of the legislature transparent and so on.

DPP legislators have proposed 16 bills, but KMT legislators blocked all of them and the bills could not even pass the procedure committee. The bills have been blocked 851 times in total.

KMT: At this moment we ask to reform congress with specific proposals. We will take the first step to change the congress.

NOWnews reports, the KMT has been questioned why didn’t the party reform congress in the last seven years while being the legislative majority?

Regarding this, the KMT replied on Facebook saying, “You can criticize why we did not do this before. But think about Taiwan’s future. At this moment, we ask to reform congress with specific proposals. We will take the first step to change the congress."

Translated by June
Edited by Olivia Yang

Sources: