The Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee yesterday again turned down a referendum proposal by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) on the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), despite a ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court last month that said the committee must review the application.
“With a nine-to-three vote, the committee has decided to reject the TSU’s proposed referendum on whether the government should sign the ECFA with China based on two major reasons,” committee chairman Chao Yung-mau (趙永茂) said after he walked out of a four-hour meeting.
“The first reason is that the question asked in the referendum and the contents of the petition for the referendum are contradictory, and second, the Referendum Act (公民投票法) stipulates that issues related to tariffs and taxation cannot be decided in a referendum,” he said.
Photo: CNA
He said the TSU’s referendum proposal asks whether voters agree that the government should have signed the ECFA with China, while in the petition, the TSU asked voters whether they agree with the actual contents of the ECFA that the government signed with China in 2010.
Asked whether the committee has violated the ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court by rejecting the referendum proposal, Chao said he did not think so.
“The Supreme Administrative Court wanted us to do two things — to hold public hearings on the referendum and to review the proposal. We did both,” Chao said.
Two years ago, when the Referendum Review Committee turned down the TSU’s referendum proposal on the same issue, the party filed a lawsuit against the committee, questioning the legitimacy of its decision.
Last month, the Supreme Administrative Court handed down its final ruling, which required the committee to make up for some missed steps.
Before the meeting started at 9:30am, about 30 to 40 supporters of the TSU, led by TSU Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉), rallied outside the meeting venue, urging the committee to pass the referendum proposal.
The Referendum Act stipulates that a proposal, after completing the first stage by collecting the signatures of 0.5 percent of the number of people eligible to vote in the previous presidential election, must obtain the approval of the Referendum Review Committee before it can proceed to the next stage, collecting signatures from 5 percent of those eligible to vote. It must then pass a second review before making it to polling stations.
TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) yesterday said his party would file an administrative suit against the commission over its rejection of the party’s proposed referendum on the ECFA.
Huang said the reasons the commission had given for rejecting it had already been ruled by the Supreme Administrative Court as illegal, adding that the contents of the ECFA include commerce and the tertiary sector, which have no connection with issues about domestic tariffs.
“The commission’s reasons simply show that it is rejecting the TSU referendum for the sake of it,” Huang said.
“We will ask the Control Yuan to move for the impeachment of the nine members of the commission who voted to deny the party’s referendum proposal,” Huang said, adding that the party would pursue administrative action against the commission as soon as possible.
Additional reporting by CNA
The domestically designed Teng Yun 2 drone passed development milestones over the weekend, flying for more than 10 hours straight and circling Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), in the longest flight of an indigenous uncrewed combat aerial vehicle. Developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the Teng Yun 2, or “Cloud Rider” (騰雲二型), recorded its longest flight yet over the weekend, after a three-hour test flight last month, followed by five and seven-hour stretches in the air. The Teng Yun 2 No. 1812 departed from Chiashan Air Base in Hualien County at 6:46pm on Saturday and flew on a
OVER THE HUMP: In a seven-day period ending on Wednesday, the nation reported 366,628 new cases, down 19 percent from the 451,358 reported in the previous week The nation might further open up to more arrivals in the next two months, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 48,283 new local COVID-19 cases, down from more than 50,000 in the previous few days. Taiwan on Wednesday last week introduced a plan to allow up to 25,000 arrivals per week as part of efforts to gradually reopen borders, which includes reducing mandatory quarantines for inbound travelers from seven to three days, followed by four days in “self-initiated epidemic prevention.” The quota covers inbound Taiwanese arrivals, businesspeople and migrant workers. Former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday said
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said it is monitoring Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy ship movements near Taiwan, after the Japanese Ministry of Defense disclosed that Chinese vessels made a rare voyage between Yilan County and Japan’s Yonaguni. The Japanese ministry on Wednesday said that two Chinese navy ships on Tuesday diverted from their usual route of entering the Pacific Ocean via the Miyako Strait and for the first time traveled there between Yilan and Yonaguni. The Japan Self-Defense Forces said that it picked up the presence of China’s Type-056A Jiangdao-class corvette 220km north of Yonaguni at 9am on Tuesday. The
A slew of new measures are to take effect on Friday, including nationwide bring-your-own-cup discounts. The new rule requires chain beverage shops to offer discounts of at least NT$5 (US$0.17) to customers who bring their own cups, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. The policy would apply to more than 50,000 chain retail locations, including beverage shops, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets. It aims to cut down on waste from single-use plastic cups, more than 2.2 billion of which were used in Taiwan in 2020, the agency said. For convenience, the EPA said it has asked retailers to display signs stating how