Legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng is starting to get annoyed at the behaviour of his fellow legislators:

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday threatened to call in the police next Tuesday to protect his authority if lawmakers again try and occupy the speaker’s podium and disrupt a vote on two controversial bills in the Legislative Yuan.
…
“I will safeguard the legislative speaker’s authority,” Wang asserted. “I can’t reveal right now exactly how I will prevent irrational boycotts, but if lawmakers really occupy the speaker’s podium at that time, it is possible that the police would be brought in.”

Would calling in the cops be a good move? There are obvious dangers – most notably the idea of a pan-Blue legislator deciding to arrest a pan-Green legislators will cause outrage in some quarters (a debasement of democracy, a return to martial law, white terror, and so on)[*]. Even if it restores order to the legislature, it is likely to cause an even bigger rift between the two groups.

However, it is clear that the legislature needs some control – and appeals to the legislators sense of decorum or common deceny only serve to prove that they haven’t got any. Without even the Marquess of Queensberry to restrain them, we can look forward to further all-in-wrestling sessions unless someone enforces some rules[**].

Among the Taiwanese public there is a sense of almost universal embarassment and contempt for the behaviour of their politicians, and so I’m fairly confident that the huge majority of people would be cheering the first time a policeman evicted an out-of-control legislator.

Although my respect for Wang has plummeted since I witnessed his childish reaction to losing the KMT leadership battle, he seems to do a good job as speaker, and I’m glad he’s threatening action here. Apart from warning the legislators that he’s willing to call in the police, he also had some eminently sensible advice to the pan-Green legislators on what to do with legislation you don’t like:

Wang suggested, however, that the DPP could find ways to block the measure, including using the Executive Yuan’s veto power.

The DPP also could ask the Council of Grand Justices to determine if the law is constitutional, he continued.

After being shelved for four months, the NCC and cross-strait peace bills are set to spark a showdown, and it is time to vote on them, Wang said.

In other words: stop acting like hooligans, and start acting like politicians.

A final (unrelated) note: Would someone please buy the Taiwanese newspapers a dictionary or two. EtaiwanNews keeps talking about boycotts of the legislature (the two other local rags do the same). A boycott is when you abstain from something – not when you deliberately start a fight. Better words to describe the legislators behaviours are ‘organised riot’, ‘sit in’, ‘fight’, or perhaps ‘obstruction’.

* One of the reasons for the gladitorial atmosphere in the legislature is that some of the current DPP legislators have in fact been arrested and imprisoned for advocating democracy and freedom of speech during the martial law years – and many of the current KMT legislators were active members of the government which did this suppression. Given this history, an atmosphere of resentment and distrust is fairly understandable – and so the pan-Blues do need to tread carefully when trying to control the legislature
** I am sure the legislature already has some rules which govern what legislators can and cannot do – but I am equally sure that these rules are completely ignored.