President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration recently decided that the issue of halting or continuing construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), should be put to a referendum. Although no votes yet have been cast, it is almost certain that the public will lose unless a miracle occurs and voter turnout exceeds 9 million voters, half of all eligible voters, which is the requirement for a referendum to be legally binding.
The way a referendum question is phrased essentially decides its outcome, and that is a ridiculous state of affairs. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Ma is pulling yet another trick.
The way Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) has based the referendum on whether construction of the plant should be halted or not is equally ridiculous.
A referendum is a tool for the public express their views on whether to reject inappropriate laws, stop inappropriate government policies or create laws that the legislature is not willing to make.
The government has the legal power to set policy, so why does it need to hold a referendum? If it wants to stop construction of the plant it can do so, just as it can let construction continue if that is what it wishes to do.
Referendums are a weapon for the public to resist or subdue a government. The government should never use them for its own purposes.
If a referendum on the plant is held, then the public should propose it, not the government. It is shocking for the premier to try to stipulate the content. It is also absurd for lawmakers to initiate a referendum. Who has heard of lawmakers having the right to carry out the powers of initiative and referendum?
The referendum question should also be decided by the public. Nobody from the government should be allowed to have a say in the matter.
Those who support the continued construction of the plant have no reason to propose a referendum, because the continued construction of the plant is a policy that the government is already carrying out.
It is members of the public who oppose continued construction who need to propose one, so they can bring public opinion into play and force the government to stop its current policies.
Ma and Jiang are not only bad, they are only concerned with Machiavellian trickery. The Referendum Act (公民投票法) is a freakish, unconstitutional law being used by these political cheats to rob the public of their powers of initiative and referendum.
If the referendum is lost against these political cheats, it must not be forgotten that the Referendum Act is unconstitutional and that the results of any referendum held according to it should be invalid.
The public must prepare itself for a long, tough period of resistance against the government. This right is enshrined in the Constitution.
Citizens must resist as long as it takes for the government to give them back their powers of initiative and referendum, as long as it takes for the construction of the plant to be stopped and until Taiwan is made into a nuclear-free country.
Allen Houng is a professor in National Yang-Ming University’s Institute of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition.
Translated by Drew Cameron
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
Taiwan is rapidly accelerating toward becoming a “super-aged society” — moving at one of the fastest rates globally — with the proportion of elderly people in the population sharply rising. While the demographic shift of “fewer births than deaths” is no longer an anomaly, the nation’s legal framework and social customs appear stuck in the last century. Without adjustments, incidents like last month’s viral kicking incident on the Taipei MRT involving a 73-year-old woman would continue to proliferate, sowing seeds of generational distrust and conflict. The Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法), originally enacted in 1980 and revised multiple times, positions older
Nvidia Corp’s plan to build its new headquarters at the Beitou Shilin Science Park’s T17 and T18 plots has stalled over a land rights dispute, prompting the Taipei City Government to propose the T12 plot as an alternative. The city government has also increased pressure on Shin Kong Life Insurance Co, which holds the development rights for the T17 and T18 plots. The proposal is the latest by the city government over the past few months — and part of an ongoing negotiation strategy between the two sides. Whether Shin Kong Life Insurance backs down might be the key factor
RSS