The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus yesterday said it would file a motion tomorrow to request that the lawmaking body reconsider the recently passed law that governs the operation of the National Assembly, claiming that the ratification threshold for constitutional amendments is too high.
"We'd like to apologize to the public for conceding at the last minute during cross-party talks to agree on a higher threshold for constitutional amendments," said DPP Secretary-General Lee Yi-yang (
Responding to public criticism of the high ratification threshold for constitutional amendments, Lee said that the DPP decided to request that the legislature conduct a review of some of the articles of the law.
"The ball is now in the court of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus, which is also in favor of the constitutional amendment package passed by the legislature last August," he said.
KMT caucus whip Chen Chieh (
"To tell you the truth, I'm very surprised and feel sorry about their decision, because each caucus agreed on the threshold and signed an accord during the last round of multiparty negotiations," he said. "They [the DPP] must have been under a tremendous amount of pressure."
The DPP's decision came after Lee called an emergency meeting yesterday afternoon with such party heavyweights as director of the DPP's policy committee Ker Chien-ming (
The legislature passed the Law on the National Assembly's Exercise of Power (
The statute also stipulates that ballots cast by assembly members failing to toe their party's line should be considered invalid, but be counted into the total number of votes anyway.
The passage of the legislation reportedly angered former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (
The DPP caucus now seeks to overturn the article setting the ratification threshold for constitutional amendments, hoping to lower the bar from 75 percent to 50 percent.
It also hopes to exclude invalid ballots from the total number of votes.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
DPP caucus whip Jao Yung-ching (
"It has always been our policy to stick to the simple majority threshold," he said. "The reason that we eventually agreed on it is because they would really hate to see the assembly face the immediate predicament of being prevented from performing its duty if the statute failed to clear the legislature before the assembly meets."
According to the internal rules of the legislature, a bill enjoys a maximum four-month period of cross-party negotiations if any legislative caucus refuses to put it to a vote to decide its fate.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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