Lawmakers and government officials yesterday squared off in the legislature over adjustments to thresholds for holding referendums and recalling public officials, culminating in Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators blocking a motion by the opposition asking the administration to submit draft amendments to the two related acts within two months.
As civic groups have continued their push for amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) and the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), Democratic Progressive Party legislators have repeatedly submitted proposals to lower thresholds for holding a vote, but their motions have been blocked at least 128 times by their KMT counterparts, DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said.
The movement appeared to have gained momentum after New Taipei City Mayor and KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that he would be glad to see “rational adjustments” made to the two laws.
However, on Monday, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) reportedly told a KMT caucus meeting that no changes should be made to the two acts.
Chien yesterday denied making such a statement, telling a meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee that it was false reporting.
“Rational adjustments can certainly be discussed, such as the thresholds for proposing and petitioning [for a referendum or a recall],” he said.
However, he insisted that the 50 percent voter turnout should be retained to avoid having a minority make decisions for the majority.
Central Election Commission Chairman Liu Yi-chou (劉義周) advised proponents of change to carefully consider the potential impact of referendum results when proposing changes to the thresholds.
Although the Referendum Act is not within the commission’s purview, “as a professor I believe there is a theoretical basis for lowering the threshold to 40 percent, which is half of 80 percent, the highest voter turnout on the country’s record,” Liu said.
As for the DPP’s proposal to abolish the 21-member Referendum Evaluation Committee — which has the right to veto proposals to hold referendums, including a petition last year, backed by 120,000 signatures, to hold a referendum on the operation of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant — Chien said the committee should not be abolished since the Council of Grand Justices’ Interpretation No. 645 has made it clear that the committee is not unconstitutional.
DPP Legislator Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said that is why referendums are compared to a “bird cage” in Taiwan, because there exist countless hurdles for a vote to take place.
Lee questioned Chien’s citation of the grand justices’ interpretation, saying it had ruled that the composition of the committee being proportional to political party representation in the legislature is unconstitutional, “but not that the committee per se is constitutional.”
The DPP legislators’ extempore motion asking the Executive Yuan to submit draft amendments to the two acts within two months was voted down by the KMT lawmakers.
Chien said a public hearing is to be held by the Ministry of the Interior on the threshold question, in which different views could be discussed.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS