The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday lambasted the new Referendum Law (公投法), saying it prevents the people's and the government's participation in the referendum process, while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) urged the Cabinet not to reopen debate on the law.
The legislature yesterday killed all the controversial clauses in the Referendum Law, such as those allowing a change in the country's sovereignty status, and denied the Cabinet the right to propose a referendum.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Amid the pan-blue victory, DPP legislative caucus leader Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said yesterday, "We were very disappointed with this Referendum Law, which is basically a law restricting the practice of a referendum."
Ker said the pan-blue alliance put numerous limitations into the law, including the establishment of a referendum supervisory committee to screen topics allowed for referendums, and the requirement that the committee members be chosen according to the number of legislative seats held by each party.
"Given that pan-blue legislators dominate the legislature, we don't see any possibility that a referendum can be held together with the presidential election next year," Ker said. "The minimum requirement to hold a referendum is too high."
DPP Legislator Lin Chuo-shui (林濁水) said yesterday that, given the dominance of the KMT-PFP alliance, the Referendum Law passed last night sabotaged people's right to determine their own future and inflated the rights of the legislature.
"The KMT-PFP alliance infringed on people's rights and dwarfed administrative agencies' participation in the referendum," Lin said.
Failed clauses in the bill included DPP Legislator Trong Chai's (
The pan-green camp secured only the passage a "defensive referendum," which allows the president to initiate a referendum on national security issues when the country is under foreign threat.
KMT caucus whip Lee Chia-chin (
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (
"Although the Referendum Law was mostly based on the pan-blue camp's version, we think it is a significant, historic moment because the law gives people the right of initiative and referendum guaranteed by the Constitution. It is a great stride forward in the furthering of democratization in Taiwan," Lee said.
Lee also said that allowing a defensive referendum, the only clause the pan-green camp secured, would raise public consciousness about the importance of national security.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching