This article was originally published in Chinese in the Jan. 26 issue of The China Times. The author, Lin Pei-jie, is in-house counsel at Wild at Heart.
The Freedom of Information Act Alliance visited a member of the KMT legislative caucus on Jan. 17 a few weeks after the December legislative elections. Initially, he said that the KMT felt that the National Intelligence Surveillance Act should be passed simultaneously with the Freedom of Information Act. After we pressed him though, he admitted that the KMT caucus had signed off on the bill during inter-party negotiations for political considerations and that the KMT was actually worried that if the Freedom of Information Act passed, the DPP and the TSU would use the Act to attack the KMT by releasing government documents that would damage the KMT's reputation.
Before meeting with the KMT caucus, I thought that the Freedom of Information Act would be a weapon in the hands of opposition parties and ordinary citizens. But the KMT, the largest opposition pary, carries a historical burden so heavy that it is afraid to allow this sharp weapon to come into existence.The KMT is worried that if this weapon is taken out of its scabbard that it will be used to hurt the KMT before the KMT can use it against its enemies. On the night of Jan. 21, the Legislature's Conference Department announced the bills passed by the sixth session of the outgoing Fifth Legislature. The Freedom of Information Act was not one of those bills, and because of the principle that an incoming legislature does not continue the work of the outgoing legislature, the bill will have to start over.
I believe that the passage of the Freedom of Information Act will not cause legislators any pain. Anyway, if they are asked about it, the opposition can say that the "ruling party is not negotiating in good faith" while the Administration can call the opposition "barbaric." In this way, each side can absolve itself of any responsibility for the failure of the bill to pass. And the people? The people always lose.