The latest controversy surrounding the Referendum Review Committee highlights the need to do away with the committee, whose existence has long been unnecessary.
A meeting had been scheduled for Monday to review the Taiwan Solidarity Union’s (TSU) proposal for a referendum on the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). However, the low number of committee members present at the meeting caused it to be called off, and instead an e-mail was sent to solicit opinions from the members about logistical issues and whether public hearings should be held on the TSU’s proposal.
The unprofessional and careless attitude displayed by the committee and its members is beyond belief.
Thanks to the birdcage Referendum Act (公民投票法), Taiwanese have been saddled with a Referendum Review Committee that filters out people’s voices.
Despite their grievances, law-abiding individuals and groups seeking to launch referendums work to comply with the law by submitting their petitions for approval by the committee. In the same manner, the committee members should take it upon themselves to uphold the responsibility the law has bestowed upon them and deal with referendum proposals with diligence and attentiveness.
Instead, only five of the committee’s 21 members showed up at the meeting on Monday. The committee’s executive secretary, Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐), said the 16 absent members were preoccupied with personal engagements, such as trips abroad, classroom engagements, court appearances and interviews.
If the committee members cannot take their work seriously and cannot recognize the importance of referendum proposals — which people invest their time and sweat collecting signatures for — they need to be removed from their posts.
Better yet, abolish the committee altogether.
The committee early last month muzzled the voices of more than 200,000 people by killing their petition for a referendum on the government’s trade pact with China. This decision hijacked our democratic rights and marred the nation’s efforts at consolidating its democracy.
Then there is the issue of using e-mail to discuss whether a hearing on the TSU’s latest referendum proposal should be held. Some — applying a “time is money” logic — may argue that use of e-mail is an efficient way to solicit people’s opinions. However, such an argument fails to recognize the high-profile nature of the matter the committee is dealing with. This case necessitates the committee’s full attention, not the lax approach of an e-mail. The committee should know better than to treat a politically sensitive matter so casually.
It is bad enough that Taiwanese have to suffer an agency such as the Referendum Review Committee standing in the way of direct democracy, but it is even more disheartening to know the committee and its members are treating the people’s voices in such a perfunctory manner.
All in all, the latest incident clearly suggests the agency needs to go. Aside from ridding Taiwan of an agency that exists only to stand in the way of democracy, the taxpayer money being used to pay committee members could finally be spent to serve the public interest.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US