C.V. Chen (陳長文), head of the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China and a lawyer, recently urged the Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee to address the issue of a proposed referendum on a trade pact being negotiated with China.
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) has proposed a referendum asking the question: “Do you agree that the government should sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China?”
The Referendum Act (公民投票法) stipulates that for the first phase of a referendum drive, organizers must collect signatures from at least 0.5 percent of eligible voters. In other words, out of 110,000 forms submitted, 86,000 have to be valid for the process to move on to the next stage.
On April 23, the TSU announced it had completed the first phase of the process by delivering 110,000 petition forms, out of nearly 200,000 signatures collected, to the Central Election Commission (CEC) for review. Once that review was completed, the CEC sent the application to the Referendum Review Committee for further examination.
The committee has decided to hold a public hearing today and to convene a meeting on June 3 to decide whether the proposed question conforms to the requirements of a valid referendum proposal.
Chen said in an open letter to Referendum Review Committee members earlier this week that the TSU’s opposition to an ECFA was well known and questioned why it included the word “agree” in its proposed question.
“This political maneuver is aimed at a loophole in the referendum law,” he said.
Chen acknowledged that the chance the proposal would be passed was minimal, but expressed concern that when the referendum proposal is rejected the TSU would continue to claim the public is against an ECFA and maintain its campaign against it.
Approval of the proposed referendum would bring “endless dire consequences,” rock the referendum system and trigger a democratic crisis, Chen wrote.
He suggested that committee members should ask whether the TSU supports or opposes an ECFA and then insist that its question reflect the party’s stance. Otherwise, the committee should reject the proposal outright, Chen wrote.
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