The Executive Yuan will consider proposing an amendment to an article concerning the composition of its Referendum Review Committee following the Council of Grand Justices’ ruling that the current composition is unconstitutional, Minister Without Portfolio Kao Su-po said yesterday.
Article 35 of the Referendum Law (公民投票法) stipulates that the 21 members of the Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee should be chosen on the basis of the proportion of legislative seats held by each political party.
The Council of Grand Justices handed down the ruling on Friday, which came more than four years after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers first filed a request to seek constitutional interpretation of the law on January 5, 2004, the first day when the law took effect.
The Council of Grand Justices said in the ruling that Article 35 of the law was unconstitutional because it infringed upon the power of the executive branch and violated the principle of the separation of power.
The article will be invalid within one year of issuing the interpretation, the Council of Grand Justices said.
Ko said yesterday that the Executive Yuan will also “make an overall assessment of the Referendum Law” and might suggest that the legislature revise the article.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus, previously as the opposition party, repeatedly boycotted an amendment to the law by the DPP caucus to lower what it called “an unreasonably high threshold for a referendum no other country in the world has set” in the legislature.
The DPP call to reduce the threshold arose again earlier this year after the KMT won nearly three-fourths of the seats in January’s legislative election as the fear of one-party dominance increased.
But the Nuke-4 Referendum Initiative Association, which led other civil groups to advance the issue, failed to secure a promise from then president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to “rectify the Referendum Law” after Ma won in the March presidential election.
Iap Phok-bun (葉博文), the association’s chief executive, urged the KMT government to look into the threshold issue when proposing an amendment to the law.
Iap also called on the KMT government to do away with the Referendum Review Committee because “no one is entitled to determine which referendum petition can be sustained and which can’t.”
All referendum petitions should be sustained as long as they meet the threshold, he said.
Meanwhile, DPP Legislator William Lai (賴清德) described Friday’s ruling as “belated justice.”
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