Decision & Positioning #022 How Do Legislators Play ‘Obtaining Confidential Documents Through Questioning’? National Assembly Reform Bill X Game Theory

The appropriateness of a law’s formulation hinges heavily on observing how each player makes decisions within the game’s rules (legal system). This newsletter will analyze one provision of the “National Assembly Reform Bill” through the lens of game theory and predict how each player will operate in this game.

The Key Factor in Strategic Decision-Making: Game Theory!

Game theory plays a crucial role in how businesses, athletes, politicians (or political figures) devise strategic decisions to outmaneuver their opponents, studying how multi-party decisions influence outcomes.

Simply put, it’s like a chess game, analyzing and predicting each of the opponent’s next moves.

National Assembly Reform Bill Analysis 1: How Do Legislators Play “Obtaining Confidential Documents Through Questioning”?

This refers to the content of Article 25, Paragraph 2, which has been passed: “The person being questioned shall not refuse to answer, provide information, conceal details, give false answers, or engage in other contemptuous behavior toward the legislature, unless it is to avoid obvious and immediate harm to national defense or diplomacy or matters required by law to remain confidential, and with the consent of the chair.”

In plain language, if a government official (the person being questioned) wishes to “refuse to answer” or “refuse to provide documents” during a legislator’s questioning, two conditions must be met:

1. To avoid obvious and immediate harm to national defense or diplomacy, or matters required by law to remain confidential.
2. With the consent of the chair (allowing the official to withhold confidential documents).

With the game’s rules clarified, let’s examine the decision-making of each role. Since this bill was strongly pushed by the majority party, the following analysis focuses on the majority party.

Decision-Making and Considerations of Each Role

• Majority Party Legislator’s Decision: Request confidential documents or not request confidential documents.
• Chair (elected by the majority party)’s Decision: Agree to the majority party legislator’s request or disagree with the majority party legislator’s request.

Majority Party Legislator requesting confidential documents and receiving approval scores 10 points (no adverse consequences):

1. Enables more effective government oversight.
2. Direct access to confidential documents, whether useful or not—grab them first as a symbol of action.
3. Legislators have parliamentary privilege, allowing future leaks or accidental disclosures without personal liability.
4. This provision imposes no specific confidentiality obligations, unlike “investigations.”

Majority Party Legislator requesting confidential documents but not receiving approval scores 5 points:

1. Though documents aren’t obtained, it demonstrates an effort to oversee the government.
2. Builds trust with supporters.

Chair (elected by the majority party) agreeing to the legislator’s request scores 10 points:

1. Enables more effective government oversight.
2. Gains recognition and support from party colleagues.
3. Even if a colleague leaks information due to poor management, the chair isn’t liable, as approving the request doesn’t imply approving leaks.

Chair (elected by the majority party) disagreeing with the legislator’s request loses 5 points:

1. The chair may face demands for re-election or internal party pressure.
2. Without strong local voter support, re-election and party primaries become challenging.
3. If the chair doesn’t assist party colleagues, they may not reciprocate, let alone gain minority party support.

Majority Party Legislator not requesting confidential documents: Both the legislator and chair operate under existing powers and oversight mechanisms, resulting in a neutral 0 points for both.

Thus, this provision clearly creates an obvious scenario: majority party committees will frequently request confidential documents from government officials, and the majority party-elected chair will likely agree. This option yields 10 points for both the legislator and the chair.

Are there any adverse consequences after obtaining confidential documents? The answer is no, because documents obtained through questioning, unlike those from investigative committees, carry no special confidentiality obligations (investigative committee documents can only be viewed by specific members on-site, with no copying, photographing, or duplicating allowed).

In other words, majority party legislators have a strong incentive to use questioning to obtain government confidential documents.

If this provision takes effect, it will usher in an era of extensive confidential document requests by the majority party.

What Kind of Law Is This?

Laws (and contracts) serve as game rules. Introducing game theory into legal analysis exposes who benefits and how each role will choose, laying bare the dynamics. Once exposed, it allows for the next step: further questions:

• What behaviors does this game rule encourage?
• Is this a good game rule?

“I won’t say too much—just leaving it here, hey!”

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Source: https://hungkaichuang.com/decision-and-positioning022-how-legislators-obtain-confidential-documents-through-questioning-national-assembly-reform-bill-x-game-theory/