Some of the information not yet widely publicized is of great significance, especially the overall evaluation of the first session of the Fifth Legislative Yuan (from February to the end of May this year) made by nearly 50 reporters covering the legislature. The surveys include judgments of the most inappropriate collective and individual conduct in the legislature, as well as matters that the legislature and individual lawmakers need urgently to improve.

Since both the legislature and its lawmakers have long had a bad image, the reporters' comments and suggestions should indeed prompt our elected representatives to improve. Since these important opinions have not appeared in the media, I would like to present them here in the hope that they will facilitate an improvement both in the way the legislature operates and in the public's impression of lawmakers.

The most inappropriate collective acts were deemed to be:

- The boycott or obstruction of legislative sessions;

- Collective grandstanding, attendance on call-in programs and the hosting of talk shows;

- Not following the party line when voting;

- Refusal to vote on approval of government appointments;

- Corruption;

- Sloppiness in the review of legislation;

- The KMT caucus' efforts to prevent its lawmakers from voting; and

- Dogmatic confrontations between parties, preventing rational debate.

The most inappropriate acts among individual lawmakers were:

- Non-declaration of financial interests, promotion of pork-barrel bills and the pursuit of personal gain to the detriment of the public interest;

- Frequent extramarital affairs that damage the image of the legislature and political parties;

- Exposure by certain legislators of their bodies to attract media attention and the use of interpellation sessions for grandstanding;

- The ruling party's stopping at nothing to get lawmakers to support its bills or caucus members refusing to follow the party line in votes on major issues;

- The jeopardizing of relations between the media and politicians; and

- DPP Legislator Lin Chung-mo's (林重謨) verbal assaults against independent legislator Sisy Chen (陳文茜).

Areas in which the legislature is in urgent need of improvement are:

- Lawmakers' attendance rates are too low and legislative committees fail to perform sufficient professional functions;

- Last-minute, rushed reviews of bills and "package votes" should be reduced. Neither the DPP nor the opposition parties take a serious attitude toward reviewing budgets;

- Professional governance should be improved;

- The National Affairs Forum should be cancelled;

- Electoral systems should be improved, electoral districts should be redrawn and greater efforts should be made to retain senior lawmakers;

- There are too many lawmakers;

- Serious ideological conflicts and wars of words;

- The inadequacy of laws to regulate the words and deeds of lawmakers. The functions of the legislature's Disciplinary Committee should be strengthened;

- Legislative procedures are often too lengthy and are conducted sloppily;

- Lawmakers should not moonlight. They must avoid conflicts of interest and expedite the passage of legislation on political donations;

- Legislative caucuses lack professionalism and the quality of legislation requires improvement;

- The legislature's libraries lack sufficient resources;

- Government officials are invited to attend interpellation sessions too frequently; and

- The legislative recess is too long.

Meanwhile, areas in which individual lawmakers should improve are:

- They should carry out their duties diligently, cultivate professional supervision capabilities and improve the quality of interpellations;

- They should abide by high ethical standards, behave with integrity and avoid conflicts of interest;

- They should be restricted from taking part in talk shows;

- The statements they make during interpellation sessions are too shallow. They should pay attention to their words and deeds and pursue political professionalism;

- The legislature has become a circus in which too many lawmakers grandstand;

- Attendance rates are too low;

- They go abroad too often;

- They do not abide by legislative regulations; and

- Many are also heavily involved in the media and legislators generally engage in too many matters beyond the role of legislator.

Since legislative reporters frequently observe the legislature's operations first hand, their comments should be of great value.

Finally, it is necessary to point out a mistake in some recent media reports which claimed that Diane Lee (李慶安) tops the list of good lawmakers in the society's evaluation. The society simply released evaluations made by both legislative reporters and lawmakers. The respondents included 47 reporters and 26 lawmakers, not members of the Taipei Society. Lee ranked first in reporters' evaluations for both 2000 and this year. In the lawmakers' evaluations, she also tops the list, along with the DPP's Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄), the PFP's Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) and Thomas Lee (李桐豪) and Sisy Chen. The quality of her performance was apparently recognized by both reporters and her legislative colleagues.

The serious blunder she made with recent false accusations against a government official may indeed damage her, but has nothing to do with her brilliant performance in the above-mentioned surveys, unless, perhaps, it indicates that she has become a little too complacent after receiving such high praise.

Chiu Hei-yuan is a convener of the legislative watch team of the Taipei Society.

Translated by Jackie Lin