The Cabinet is scheduled to decide next Monday whether to file a motion to overturn the just-passed Referendum Law (
If the Cabinet rejects the law, it will have to decide whether to overturn the entire legislation or just certain articles.
"Premier Yu Shyi-kun today assigned Minister without Portfolio Hsu Chih-hsiung (許志雄) to study the legislation and propose possible solutions. A meeting among the Cabinet, Presidential Office and legislative whips will be called on Monday to make the final decision," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said at a press conference after the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting yesterday.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Chen Chi-mai (
Lin said that it would be legitimate for the government to overturn certain parts of the legislation.
"The Constitution mandates that the government can overturn a law or resolution passed by the legislature it deems difficult to implement with the approval of the president. It of course includes overturning the entire legislation or just part of it," Lin said.
It would not be the first time the government has overturned certain clauses of a piece of legislation, Lin added.
"The Cabinet has requested overturning parts of legislation eight times over the past 10 years, including the Organic Law of the Legislative Yuan (
Lin also called on the opposition alliance not to get in the way of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) exercising his right to hold a "defensive referendum" as guaranteed by the Referendum Law.
"They're so full of inconsistency in their policies and I'm curious to know whether they consider the nation under threat from China," Lin said.
"At first, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) said that a `defensive referendum' was not necessary because the nation was not in immediate danger. Now they're campaigning to initiate a referendum similar to the `defensive referendum,'" he said.
As the nation has to respond to Beijing's continuous intimidation, Lin said, it is legitimate for Chen to initiate a "defensive referendum."
"It's in the best interest of the nation and is the best confidence-building measure and weapon," he said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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