If the current Legislative Yuan is dissolved, new legislative elections will have to be conducted under the new electoral system, the Central Election Commission said on Friday.
The commission made the announcement amid reports that the opposition was considering a recall of the president or the toppling of the Cabinet in the wake of a spate of corruption scandals implicating the close aides and family members of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Election commission officials said if opposition legislators initiated a motion of no-confidence and won enough support in the legislature, and the president refused to budge and instead dissolved the legislature, then they would have to conduct the new legislative election within 60 days.
The new legislative election would be carried out according to the amended Constitution, including the new electoral system of "single constituency, two votes" under a re-districting scheme and the halving of the number of legislative seats to 113, adopted last June.
According to the recently amended law governing the election and recall of public functionaries, the legislature is required to give its consent to the re-districting scheme at least 13 months before the current legislature expires.
Commission spokesman Deng Tien-you (鄧天祐) said the draft re-districting scheme, which was mapped out by the commission after a lengthy consultation period with local election commissions and the views of academics and experts, has already been sent to the legislature.
If the legislature has not yet given its consent and a new legislative election is approaching, then the new constituency would follow the re-districting scheme mapped out by the commission, because the status of the Constitution is higher than the law, he said.
The newly elected legislators would be sworn in for four-year terms instead of the current three years, according to the amended Constitution.
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS