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EDITORIAL: Ministers,
do not blame legislators
Government ministers seem to view trips to the legislature to present reports or
attend question-and-answer sessions with some trepidation. Many are finding
excuses not to turn up, saying the legislature is not doing its job. They feel a
trip there means setting themselves up for a public dressing-down at the hands
of legislators.
Indeed, on many occasions, when these officials do turn up to make their
reports, they find themselves censured by legislators, whether entirely
justified or not. Should the legislators wrong-foot them and get them to say
something that perhaps they should not, or the ministers are less discreet than
perhaps they should have been, they may well find themselves the target of
public criticism or ridiculed in political circles.
With the political turmoil that started in September with President Ma Ying-jeou’s
(馬英九) move to oust Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and the ensuing
controversy over the wiretapping of the legislature by the Special Investigation
Division (SID) of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, Prosecutor-General Huang
Shih-ming (黃世銘) had been spending more time at the legislature answering
questions than in his office. However, after two months of non-stop roasting by
legislators, he is now refusing to return, despite the attempts of the minister
of justice to persuade him otherwise.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) has also spent most of his time
shuttling back and forth between the legislature, the ministry and Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) headquarters since the recent food safety scare. He has
been pilloried by KMT and opposition legislators alike. National Security
Council Secretary-General Jason Yuan (袁健生) has had to attend special meetings at
the legislature to answer questions about the government’s response to Beijing’s
controversial declaration of an air defense identification zone.
Legislators’ questions can be intentionally pedantic, frivolous and repetitious,
leaving ministers vexed, frustrated and occasionally exasperated. Council for
Economic Planning and Development Minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔), when asked to
forgo his year-end bonus after the government again revised downward its GDP
growth forecast for this year, attempted to parry the suggestion with a flippant
response, but found himself not only rounded on by legislators, but hounded by
the press.
Whatever one may think of the legislators’ behavior, they represent the
legislature, and the legislature represents the public. They have a
constitutional duty of oversight of the executive branch, just as ministers have
a legal duty to go to the legislature to present reports and answer questions.
Further, when problems arise in areas under the jurisdiction of their ministry
and when legislators want to get to the bottom of these issues to answer the
concerns of the public they represent, these ministers cannot avoid their duty
as their mood takes them, or for any given pretext.
The Ma administration has shown itself wanting, rife with corruption, beset with
problems and struggling in the face of various crises. Ministers have come to
fear going to the legislature to account for these failings. When the KMT
leadership and the government start attempting to pin the failings of governance
on a non-functioning legislature, one has to consider that legislators would not
be questioning these ministries if they were operating as they should. Minister
of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) was caught saying in a moment of indiscretion:
“The ministries are taking turns to get burned,” and yes, legislators are
calling ministers in to account for themselves one by one. To blame the
legislature for the mess it is trying to clear up, however, is missing the
point.
If the ministers fear these trips to the legislature, the answer is actually
quite simple: Do your jobs, don’t screw up and make sure you do not attract
legislators’ attention.
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