For decades, consumers had two choices when they had problems with the quality of their purchases: they could either quarrel with the salesperson over a refund or they could blame themselves for not carefully checking their merchandise and just let the unpleasantness fade into memory. Although consumer awareness increased steadily over the years, as did the private channels for filing complaints, consumers felt their rights still were not protected by law. Finally, in 1988, a consumer protection bill was introduced in the Legislative Yuan. But it took three years for it to clear committee, and another three years before it was finally passed in a floor vote on January 11, 1994—six years after being sent to the Legislature.
The lengthy maturation of the consumer protection bill into law was not an unusual case. At the end of 1993, more than nine hundred bills or proposals sent to the Legislative Yuan were still awaiting final disposition. “Legislative problems can be divided into two categories—quality and quantity of legislation,” says Yao Li-ming (姚立民), a professor of law at National Sun Yat-sen University and President of the Parliament Monitoring Foundation. “Unfortunately, the public is dissatisfied with the legislature’s performance in both areas.”
Most people would agree—including legislators themselves—that one bottleneck in the legislative process is the committee system. “There are several reasons why legislative committees are not fulfilling their functions,” Yao says. “Basically, the system is inadequately designed. It allows every legislator to speak in every committee meeting. This destroys the basic function of committees, which is to divide legislative work into smaller units. And what really wastes time is that most lawmakers say the same thing.”
KMT Legislator Hung Chao-nan—“Committees waste too much time and energy listening to reports that are actually not relevant or helpful to the deliberation of bills.”
One problem with committees, says Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Hung Chao-nan (洪昭男), is the absence of a seniority system. “This has an impact on the professionalism of committee work, and committee decisions therefore have less authority and respect when reviewed on the floor,” he says. “A seniority system also would save time, but I don’t see any possibility of this happening in the near future.”
The review of bills by one or more legislative committees is an essential step in the lawmaking process. After a bill is proposed to the Legislature, and the speaker and Rules Committee place it on the agenda, it moves to the floor for first reading. Next comes committee review. Here, the bill is examined, discussed, and amended as necessary before being sent back to the floor for second and third readings. Joint meetings can also be organized to deliberate a bill that falls under the responsibility of more than one committee. Bills found to be unreasonable, unworkable, or unacceptable can be tabled or returned to the originators for reworking.
Each ministry in the Executive Yuan has a counterpart committee among the Legislature’s ten standing committees. The Legislature can also meet as a Committee of the Whole. This is done to approve the nominees for the premiership and the auditor-general of the Control Yuan and on those occasions when the legislature is asked by the Executive Yuan to reconsider a bill. In the latter cases, the premier attends to explain why the Cabinet has requested reconsideration.
Since the December 1992 elections, when all members of the Legislative Yuan became subject to re-election, the Legislature has no longer been criticized as a rubber stamp for the executive branch. As the Legislature has become more politically active—and more powerful—over the past few years, it has undertaken many changes in the way it functions. Committee operation is a telling example.
In past decades, some committees had sixty or more members, a figure that was not unwieldy for the then pro forma deliberation of bills. The new activism of the Legislature is evident from its pruning of committee membership to a maximum of eighteen legislators. Each of the 158 legislators chooses to serve on one committee of his or her choice; these memberships last only one legislative session. In the case of too many applicants for the same committee, lots are drawn.
This process has obvious draw backs. Legislators with expertise in finance, for example, have to depend on the luck of the draw rather than ability to gain assignment to the Finance Committee. And since committee memberships last only one legislative session, it is difficult for members to gain long-term expertise on the issues covered by the committee. Because there is no seniority system, the members of each committee elect three conveners who take turns setting the agenda and chairing committee meetings.
The streamlining of committee membership did not solve the problem of bulky committees. Legislators still have the right to participate in as many committees as they want. They can attend, enter discussions, and question anyone who appears to testify. The only limitation is that they can only vote if they are a member of the committee. “In one way, this system gives new legislators the chance to get experience in all the committees,” says Legislator Hung Chao-nan. “But it is difficult to establish professionalism, especially in the popular committees.”
Legislator Ju Gau-jeng (left), like many of his colleagues, at times increases the impact of tough questioning with some theatrics.
Critics of the Legislature point out that committee deliberations should be the most professional step in the whole legislative process, and that committee members should therefore be qualified for such discussions. But practice does not quite follow theory. Many legislators choose committees not according to their specialties but because of personal interests, such as the construction and insurance industries. The most popular committees are Economics, Finance, and Home and Border Affairs because they often deal with important—and controversial—domestic issues, many of them involving major tax, bond, and stock market decisions.
Hung Chao-nan himself is an example of experience being beaten by bad luck. He has a solid background in finance, and was able to serve on the Finance Committee for several sessions. But this session, he lost during the lot drawing process. “We need some kind of regulation,” Hung says, “so those who have stayed on a certain committee for a period of time don’t have to draw.” But Hung points out that all is not lost. He can still attend all Finance Committee meetings, and although he cannot vote, he is still a productive participant. “Actually, many legislators are influential in many committees, even though they can only vote in one,” he says.
Some committees have a reputation for being unpopular because they rarely deal with controversial bills—or with bills that entail major budgetary decisions. The Judiciary Committee, for example, rarely draws much attention from legislators unless an unusually important bill is being deliberated.
When legislators move from committee to committee and speak in all of them on all issues, it is difficult for committee decisions to gain respect and authority. “Some legislators don’t have enough professional knowledge,” says Stephen J. H. Chern (陳錦煌), chief secretary of the Budget Committee. “They have to spend quite a long time learning.” The learning process lengthens the deliberation time, but has little impact on improving the quality of legislation. “Government officials spend most of the time repeatedly answering elementary questions instead of having in-depth discussions on bills,” Yao Li-ming says. “As a result, the legislation process unavoidably becomes perfunctory and low in quality.”
Hung Chao-nan agrees that government officials have to spend a lot of time reporting to legislators. “Committees waste too much time and energy listening to reports that are actually not relevant or helpful to the deliberation of bills,” he says.
Have we heard this before? Critics complain that uninformed and redundant question periods in the legislative committees slow down the lawmaking process. Another problem: there is no hearings law to specify the rights and duties of participants.
Because lawmakers have a wide range of constituent concerns to satisfy, they try to participate in as many committees as possible. The more committees legislators speak in, the greater the opportunity to show voters that they are actively serving their interests. “Besides,” Hung says, “it’s a good thing to listen to different opinions before a committee reaches its conclusion.”
But Professor Yao points out that long discussions do not necessarily mean a broad spectrum of opinions are being aired. Worse, the discussion time seems to lengthen when reporters are around. “The purpose of some legislators is only to try to get more attention instead of really assessing a bill,” Yao says. “It seems that our legislators can’t accept the idea that they can attract as many supporters by demonstrating expertise in one area.”
Since legislators try to cover as many fields as possible, it is impossible for them to know the details of all bills being deliberated. They therefore depend upon personal aides, the Legislative Research Service, and committee staff members. Another common source of information is hearings, in which government officials, scholars, and others are invited to provide professional information and advice on bills under consideration.
Unfortunately, the quality of hearings is not yet up to the standards of many Western democracies. A hearings law to regulate the rights and obligations of participants has not been passed. As a result, the effectiveness of hearings is uneven at best. "Hearings should be a major resource for legislators," Yao says. "But they are now used as stages for legislators. People are invited in order to be questioned rather than to provide professional assistance." Hung Chao-nan agrees that hearings have very limited influence on legislators and legislative decisions. “They are actually more like seminars than hearings,” he says.
What can be done to improve legislative committee work? Perhaps the most important medicine is patience. Given the relatively recent transformation of the Legislative Yuan into a more powerful branch of government, it can be expected to have a few rough edges. Despite his criticisms, Yao is basically optimistic about the probable evolution of legislative committees. He thinks that some adjustments in the rules of the game among political parties and legislators themselves can overcome most of the difficulties. “To solve the problem of too many legislators wanting to serve on the same few popular committees, the political parties might negotiate with each other, then assign a number of legislators from each party to the committees,” he says. Yao also suggests limiting speakers in all committee deliberations to members only.
But Yao points out that these recommendations can only serve as a temporary cure, because substantial change in the legislative process will require further political development. “Since political parties don’t have full control over their own members,” he says, “individual performances are often more important than party negotiations.” One reason for this is the necessity for legislators to impress their constituents. Because committee meetings are often covered on television, many legislators are anxious to speak out on controversial subjects on the chance they may make the evening news.
“Legislators have to grab every chance to show their supporters that they are active in the Legislature,” Yao says, “because this will give them a better chance to win in the next election.” But he says the most fundamental solution to problems in the legislative process may take a long time to achieve: “We simply need to develop a well-established system of party politics.”