Three days after a review committee rejected its proposal to hold a referendum on the government’s proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, an increasingly angry Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday issued a statement asking members of the committee to apologize and revisit their decision.
“The Referendum Review Committee must publicly apologize within three days and reopen their deliberations or the TSU will be suing [committee members that voted against the proposal] for misconduct and exceeding their authority,” the statement quoted TSU Chairperson Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) as saying.
The TSU provided documentation on Friday challenging the committee’s decision that the TSU referendum proposal was invalid under Article 14, Section 1.4 of the Referendum Act (公民投票法).
The act states that referendum questions must not have a “contradiction or obvious error in the content of the proposal, thus making the intention of the proposal not understandable.”
A letter, shown by the TSU, dated May 5 from the Central Elections Commission (CEC) to Huang had stated that a CEC meeting held one day earlier did not find a conflict between the referendum proposal and any parts under Article 14, Section 1 of the act.
Rebutting statements by CEC officials that the referendum review committee had the final say on referendum proposals, Huang said the Executive Yuan had already stated that the CEC was responsible for determining whether proposals fulfilled Article 14, Section 1.
On Saturday, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) quoted an unnamed CEC official as saying that the CEC is only responsible for “a formality review,” while the review committee was the agency responsible for a “substantive review.”
Backing Huang’s statement, the TSU yesterday provided documents showing that a public notice by the Executive Yuan, the governing body of the Referendum Act, said on April 16, 2004, that it was giving the CEC authority to process decisions on all parts of Article 14.
The public notice with the serial number 0930083141-A said: “Effective April 16, 2004, the [Executive Yuan] designates the CEC to process items under Article 9, Section 1 and Article 14 under the Referendum Act.”
Huang said the notice proves that the review committee’s decision on Thursday “was not only entirely illegal, but the referendum review committee had already infringed on the CEC’s authority.”
He also repeated earlier calls yesterday saying the TSU was ready for a drawn out battle with the courts and that the opposition party would go as far as asking for a constitutional interpretation to ensure that an ECFA proposal could be put to a public vote.
In response to the TSU’s criticism, CEC Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) said that according to the Referendum Act, both the CEC and the Referendum Review Committee have the authority to review a referendum proposal.
“We’ve done our part and approved [the referendum proposal on whether the government should sign an economic cooperation framework agreement with China], and forwarded it to the Referendum Review Committee,” Teng said. “The Referendum Review Committee has every power endowed by the Referendum Act to make their own decision.”
He said the CEC makes more than just a “superficial review” of the referendum proposal.
“We worked with household registration offices to make sure each signature endorsing the referendum proposal is a valid one, we counted the number of signatures, and checked that everything meets the requirements as stipulated in the law,” Teng said. “It’s after all these checks that we approved the proposal and forwarded it to the Referendum Review Committee.”
“If the TSU thinks there’s a problem, they can certainly appeal it or do whatever they wish according to the law,” he said.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2