民主政府﹐ 黑箱決策﹐政治責任

Democratic
Government, Black Box Decision Making and Political Responsibilities

民主政府﹐黑箱決策﹐政治責任

 

In his House of Commons speech on November 11, 1947, Winston
Churchill in his usual eloquence and witty used of the English language said
that 

 

"Democracy
is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have
been tried from time to time."

Whenever one is confronted with a complex situation, the best thing to do is to
go "upstream" to think what the fundamental reason is. In this case,
it is merely trying to fully comprehend the basic structure of a democratic
government. So, by throwing in words like "dictatorial government" and "revolution" without truly comprehending their meanings or implications could be a slippery slope towards some form of government we may not wish to have. Make sure one understands
precisely what a "democratic government" is before throwing other
words into the pot. 

What is a democratic government? It’s a government which has
people’s representatives making policies (a la laws) in a “house” which
sometimes is called known as a “Parliament” or as in the United States known as
a “Congress.” Unquestionably, the Parliament or the Congress is perhaps the
most sacred of a democracy.

In the “Parliament,” there are Parliamentarians (in UK in the
lower house, they are called MPs, or Members of Parliament and in the US
Congress, they are called Congressmen/Congresswomen,) who are men/women elected
to represent people from their geographical constituencies. In a two party
system of government, which Taiwan has evolved into in the latter part of the
20^th century and certainly in the 21^st century, we have a
party with majority seats and a party with minority seats. To ensure that the
minority voice can be heard, in the US Senate, there is a process known as
“filibuster” to protect just that although we know that in recent years, this
was abused by the minority. I am not sure whether Taiwan’s parliament has such
procedures. In any case, such procedures are just details which can be
adjusted.

What is important is that any sort of decision making in the
Parliament requires members to cast votes. Of course, since the “ruling” party
has the majority seats, under normal circumstances it usually can pass the
decision it wants. However, if the decision is truly a bad one for the nation,
often even within the majority there are parliamentarians who would not go
along with their party. In a real democracy, this can, will and is expected to
happen.

But ultimately, decisions or laws are made in the Parliament.
With this in mind, within a Parliament, one does not and cannot accept the
concept of “black box” decision making. After all, if the opposition (or the
party with minority of seats in the Parliament) thinks it is black box
decision, it is because members of the minority have not carried out what they
were elected by their constituents to do, which is to proactively participate
in the Parliament, under strict Parliamentary rules and regulations,  the
proper debate or negotiations. In fact, when that happens, it is NOT a black
box, it is irresponsibility from the opposition.

Once a decision is made in the Parliament, it is law of the land. Ultimately,
if the people truly dislike what the majority did, then they have a chance to
vote them out the next round of election and let the new Government to
“correct” the mistakes.

Think carefully and critically. Unfortunately, since neither NTU
nor NTHU as top universities in Taiwan have given our students the very best
and the most comprehensive civic lessons, I think the universities should take
some responsibilities for not doing the job as well as can be expected. This is
why education, real and true education (not training, or influencing or
brainwashing) is so important for the well being of a nation!

All this democratic process sounds cumbersome, tedious and slow.
You bet it is. Yet, as Winston Churchill so eloquently said almost 70
years ago, it is the best system we as human beings know how to organize and
operate a democratic government. Any deviation from this situation, we have the
danger of reducing a democratic government into anarchy. I certainly do not
think, and I earnestly do not hope this is what students want to achieve. 

Da Hsuan Feng

Senior Vice President, Global Strategy,
Planning and Evaluation

National Tsing Hua University

資深副校長馮達旋教授

(全球策略與企劃研考)

國立清華大學

http://my.nthu.edu.tw/~secwww/vicepresident/vicepresident.html

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