A coalition of civic groups and human rights organizations yesterday demanded leaders of the nation’s political parties to follow through on their promises to pursue constitutional reforms.
Despite diverse proposals for constitutional reforms from across party lines, action on the issue has been “limited to verbal expressions,” the groups said.
The groups urged legislators to motion for a constitutional amendment by the end of the current legislative session — which closes on May 31 — to allow a referendum to take place concurrently with the presidential and legislative elections next year.
By law, amendments to the Constitution must be approved by the public through a referendum — which requires prior announcement by six months.
Given that the next legislative session is to take place from September to December, the current session might be the last opportunity for legislators to hold meaningful discussions on the reforms, National Taiwan University professor of law Chen Chao-ju (陳昭如) said.
Taiwan Association for Human Rights vice president Chiou Wen-tsong (邱文聰) said that ideas on reforms to the Constitution have been brewing since the Sunflower movement last year, in which scores of protesters expressed their dissatisfaction toward the government’s handling of a cross-strait service trade agreement.
“We have a president that lunges ahead, but we lack a healthy legislature to provide checks and balances [to his power],” Chiou said.
At a joint news conference in Taipei yesterday, representatives from the groups — including the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Taiwan Democracy Watch, the Awakening Foundation and the Judicial Reform Foundation — accused leaders of both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of wavering on their stance toward constitutional reform.
During a conference last week, the DPP reached a “preliminary consensus” to lower the voting age to 18, as well as to abolish the Control Yuan and Examination Yuan.
However, it also declared that a parliamentary system or presidential system were both “unfit for Taiwan’s political culture.”
Taiwan Democracy Watch member Yen Chueh-an (顏厥安) said that the DPP’s failure to make a comprehensive proposal seemed to stand in stark contrast with DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) repeated calls for parliamentary reforms last year.
The groups accused KMT Chairman and New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) of inaction, saying that he has failed to contribute further to the discussion after brief suggestions of a parliamentary system.
Meanwhile, the Civic Alliance to Promote Constitutional Reform — a group calling for increased grassroots involvement in constitutional reform through a series of public forums — lauded former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) comments in a speech on Monday, adding that the former president’s views coincided with their own.
Lee said that upcoming reforms should be carried out through a two-stage process, in which certain procedural amendments — such as lowering the threshold for referendums — can be carried out first, while more divisive issues on government structure can be dealt with during a second stage.
He also emphasized the importance of the public involvement in the reforms, urging political parties to allow the public to express their opinions.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
RSS