Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) visited the Judicial Yuan yesterday to petition for a constitutional interpretation on the nation’s voting age, in the hope of lowering it from 20 to 18 years old.
Ting and other legislators have repeatedly proposed an amendment to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) that would reduce the voting age.
With the aim of prompting the Council of Grand Justices to issue an interpretation stating that the Constitution does not per se restrict the universal election rights of nationals who have reached 18 years of age, 52 legislators across party lines have signed the petition that Ting handed over to the Judicial Yuan yesterday.
Ting also met with Judicial Yuan President Rai Hau-min (賴浩敏) for a brief talk on the matter.
Of all the countries in the world, 75 percent have a legal voting age of 18, Ting said.
While the Ministry of the Interior said it is not against lowering the threshold, it said it considers the change would require an amendment to the Constitution since the document clearly states that voting rights are limited to nationals aged 20 and above, Ting said.
The lawmaker said he feels this understanding borders on an infringement of legislative power by the executive branch, thereby making it necessary that an interpretation be issued the Council of Grand Justices if his bid to lower the voting age is to succeed.
Ting said the election rights of those aged 20 and above are protected by the Constitution according to “the principle of legal reservation,” but that there should be room for discussion and judgement among legislators on whether election rights should also be granted to those younger than 20.
Ting added that Grand Justices Huang Hsi-chun (黃璽君) and Lo Chang-fa (羅昌發) agreed that lowering the legal voting age to 18 is not unconstitutional when they were questioned on the issue during the approval process of their nominations at the legislature in 2011.
“An amendment to the Constitution requires a proposal tabled by one-fourth of the legislators, with three-quarters present and three-quarters of those attending voting in favor of the resolution, which then has to be passed, six months after its proclamation, by a majority of the nation’s electorate in a referendum,” Ting said.
“This is simply a threshold too high to be crossed in a short period of time. So we hope a constitutional interpretation by the Grand Justices can speed up the legislation,” he added.
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