Free Lectures》If the salary freeze is a principle of responsibility, the Legislative Yuan should also be tested

◎ Zaimi

The Legislative Yuan froze the salary of Executive Director Zhuo Rongtai from September to December, and listed the completion of legal counter-signatures and preparation of budgets in accordance with the law as conditions for unfreezing. This dispute is not just about a few months' salary, but a more direct institutional issue: If "freezing salary if duties are not completed" is a universally applicable liability principle, should the Legislative Yuan itself accept the same standard?

Ke Ke Kui: Do legislators have the same standards?

The Legislative Yuan has the authority to review the budget and supervise administration, but supervision and requiring the executive head to complete specific actions are not the same thing. If the Executive Yuan’s failure to countersign the law can be a reason for a salary freeze, then if the Legislative Yuan fails to pass a general budget one month before the start of the fiscal year in accordance with Article 51 of the Budget Law, can the same standard be used to test the salaries of legislators? If not, what are the reasons?

Article 52 of the Budget Law allows statutory budgets to be subject to additional conditions or deadlines, but it also stipulates that this does not apply to those not permitted by law. This means that budgetary conditions are not without boundaries. When the conditions for unfreezing are directly related to whether the Executive Yuan will counter-sign laws and how to prepare a budget, we cannot just ask whether the Legislative Yuan has budget power, but also whether these conditions are still within the scope of budget supervision.

Budget supervision turns deliberation into command power

What really needs to be tested is whether this set of responsibility logic can be universally applied. If it is considered reasonable to "freeze personal salaries if statutory duties are not completed", the Legislative Yuan should also face the same problem if it fails to complete the general budget review as scheduled. On the other hand, if this set of standards can only be used to demand the Executive Yuan but not the Legislative Yuan itself, questions will arise as to whether the same responsibility standard can be applied consistently.

Congress can cut or freeze the budget, and can also supervise administration through inquiries and other constitutional mechanisms. However, directly linking personal salary to specific constitutional actions will shift the debate from "how to use the budget" to "whether the budget can be used to ask the chief minister to do something." Today, the Executive Yuan is the deputy signature of the law. In the future, the same logic may also apply to the policies or administrative decisions of other heads of state.

Therefore, what really needs to be answered is not that Zhuo Rongtai will receive a few months less salary, but two questions: can budget power be used to require the executive head to complete specific actions; if "freezing salary if duties are not performed" is really a principle of responsibility, is the Legislative Yuan willing to let the same standard test itself? These two issues are the institutional issues left behind by the salary freeze controversy.

This year's central government's general budget was delayed for 351 days in the Legislative Yuan, setting a record for the longest review in history. The picture shows DPP legislators protesting against the Blue and White legislators for paralyzing national affairs.