A draft version of the Political Party Act was approved at the Executive Yuan's weekly meeting on August 30 and will be submitted to the Legislative Yuan for review.
Premier Sean Chen said the act will help promote healthy development of Taiwan's party politics, create a level playing field for parties and ensure that parties' structures and operations are in line with democratic principles. He instructed the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to communicate with legislators of the ruling and opposition parties to bring about smooth completion of the legislation as part of the effort to promote clean government and answer the public's call for "sunshine politics."
According to the MOI, given the important role political parties play in modern democratic systems, democracies around the world have mechanisms to protect and regulate them. In 1989, following the lifting of martial law in Taiwan on July 15, 1987 and the end of the ban on the formation of new political parties soon afterwards, the MOI introduced a new chapter to the Civil Associations Act, "Political Associations", to prescribe the registration of new political parties. As that law merely sees political parties as civil associations and enforces passive, lenient regulations on them, it has not met the expectations of society or the needs of party politics. Therefore, the government determined a new law with special regulations on parties was necessary.
The main points of the draft are summarized as follows:
Chapter 1, "General Provisions" (Articles 1-6), names the purposes of the act and its regulating authorities. It also stipulates the definition of political parties, the establishment of their organizational areas and headquarters, the democratic principles of their operation and principles for ensuring their fair treatment.
Chapter 2, "Establishment of Political Parties" (Articles 7-10), prescribes the procedures and documents required for establishing a political party, the basic credentials required of a party chairperson, restrictions on party names, their registration as a juridical body and the procedures to change a party charter or chairperson.
Chapter 3, "Political Party Organizations and Activities" (Articles 11-18), establishes citizens' freedom to join political parties, registration of party members' identities, items that a party charter must list, the filing and processing of party logos and restrictions on said logos, the convening of general assemblies for party members or representatives, and the criteria for forming a party caucus.
Chapter 4, "Party Finance" (Articles 19-24), regulates parties' sources of funding and accounting systems, the filing and publication of their property and financial statements, party grants, and prohibitions on parties' operation of and investment in for-profit enterprises as well as their purchases of real estate.
Chapter 5, "Discipline, Dissolution and Merger of Political Parties" (Articles 25 to 32), regulates the discipline, dissolution, merger and disbanding of political parties.
Chapter 6, "Penalties" (Articles 33-42), prescribes the penalties to be meted out to a party's chairperson and its central and local election candidates for vote-buying, organizing activities illegally or violating this act.
Chapter 7, "Supplementary Provisions" (Articles 43-48), gives transitional provisions to regulate parties that were in existence before the implementation of this act. It also terminates previous regulations on competition and cooperation between political parties and parties' operations of and investments in for-profit enterprises.