Constitutional amendments to downsize the legislature and abolish the National Assembly are slated to be discussed and possibly voted on during Friday's legislative sitting, the legislature's Procedure Committee decided yesterday.
However, negotiations on the downsizing bill broke down yesterday over differences on how the new constituencies will be demarcated.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) all said they supported the bill by issuing top-level mobilization orders for Friday's session.
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and the alliance of independent lawmakers, however, still object to the way the "single-member district, two vote" system will be implemented, casting doubt on how the bill will fare on Friday.
The current system elects several lawmakers from each constituency, with legislator-at-large seats allocated according to the proportion of the vote each political party gets across the country.
The "single-member district, two vote" system would give each person one vote for a candidate for their constituency and another vote for a party list of legislators-at-large.
Attempting to solve the differences, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
"I'll consult the caucuses on whether to discuss the bill article by article, and whether individual legislators will be allowed to voice their opinions on the bill," Wang said.
The DPP, KMT and PFP caucuses, the three largest in the legislature, propose passing the bill before the end of this month so that National Assembly representatives can be elected together with legislators in December.
All constitutional amendments must be passed by the National Assembly, which now meets only on an ad hoc basis to consider such amendments.
The TSU said that if the caucuses differ on other issues, the amendment should touch only on the issues of legislative downsizing and term-lengths for legislators, which have already been agreed.
"We just want to concentrate on the downsizing. Concerning the adjustments to the current election system and political system, they need comprehensive discussions before they get passed," TSU caucus whip Chen Chien-ming (
The TSU also said that it would now focus on promoting a comprehensive review of the Constitution.
The alliance of independent lawmakers said that it might oppose the constitutional amendments if they go to a vote on Friday.
The Procedure Committee also decided to allow Premier Yu Shyi-kun to present to the Legislative Yuan a statement on the Cabinet's administrative policies and a report on its administration starting from June 1.
Regulations require the Executive Yuan to present a report to the legislature within two weeks of the premier taking office.
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