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Legislature passes National Assembly operation's law

The Legislative Yuan passed a law governing the operation of the National Assembly yesterday that requires a three-quarter majority vote for the passage of any constitutional amendments.

The law stipulates that the assembly should convene within 10 days of the confirmation of the results of the assembly elections, with the session to last no more than one month.

During the session, the Legislative Yuan must send a representative to the assembly to brief its members on the details of the proposed constitutional amendments that the legislature passed.

Attendance by at least one-third of the assembly members is required before a meeting can be held and in the event of a vote, the opinions of the assembly members will be marked on ballot papers bearing their names.

After the briefing by the legislative representative, the assembly must pass resolutions on proposed constitutional amendments without further discussion and the amendments will be considered passed if they are supported by at least three-quarters of the assembly members, the law states.

The legislature also abrogated a statute governing the remuneration and allowances for assembly members yesterday and revised the Organic Law of the National Assembly (國大職權行使法) to cancel the assistant and constituent service fees for the members.

The step is expected to save the treasury more than NT$55 million (US$1.75 million) each assembly session.

The assembly, which used to be a permanent body elected every six years, was changed in 2000 to an ad hoc organization that is elected only under certain circumstances such as when a proposal to amend the Constitution has been put forth by the Legislative Yuan.

The first such election was held May 14, in which the 300 assembly seats were allotted to various political parties and groups according to the proportion of votes each garnered.

The assembly is scheduled to start its session on June 1 to consider a proposed constitutional amendment package adopted by the legislature last August.

Items in the package include reducing the number of legislative seats from the present 225 to 113 and adopting a "single seat, two votes" legislative electoral system starting with the seventh legislature to be elected in 2007, as well as phasing out the National Assembly to allow for popular referendums on future constitutional amendments.
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