| Summary: | 博士 === 中國文化大學 === 中山學術研究所 === 92 === The author is an incumbent Taipei City councilor. Soon after the author was sworn in as a city councilor of the Eighth City Council, the Local Government Act was enacted on January 25, 1999. The passage of this law has set a new milestone in the history of local autonomy in Taiwan. But as the current status of local autonomy is under the long-standing ideology of centralization of power, the custom of categorizing local autonomous groups as subordinate agencies of the central government still remains. Because the Local Government Act was hastily passed, many of its provisions are not well-defined or all-encompassing. As a result, problems and disputes have been surfacing since its enactment. The actual implementation of the law has also run into difficulties. The law in fact severely restricts the exercise of local legislative power, while extending immensely the local administrative power. The imbalance of power between the administrative and legislative branches of the local government has in fact limited the sound development of the local legistative power.
This paper examines the implementation of local autonomy from the perspective of local legislative body. Related issues are tackled primarily from the legal and political standpoints, and further based on the author’s experience and in-depth interviews for verification purpose. It is expected that through this study, the protection for local legislative power can be more comprehensive so as to truly achieve local autonomy as soon as possible . This paper also clarifies the boundary of vertical interactions between the local and the central legislative bodies as well as the extent of horizontal interactions between the local administrative and legislative bodies in an attempt to mitigate the dispute over the authority of the central and local governments and the constant confrontation between the President Office and the Legislative Yuan. This paper aims to seek a breakthrough in the long-standing dilemma faced by the local legislative body in the exercise of its power, to offer an alternative view to look at these matters, and to offer suggestions for rectifying the shortfall of the Local Government Act and relevant regulations. The author hopes that the central and local governments can move from a superior-subordinate relation to an equal partnership, and that the local administrative and legislative bodies can put aside their confrontation and forge a supervisory and check-and-balance relation. The true implementation of local autonomy will bring maximum benefits to the people. It is also what the author is looking forward to .
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