The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucuses yesterday unveiled their respective proposed amendments to the Constitution.
The Constitutional Amendment Committee is expected to commence the review of various versions of a constitutional amendment bill in the middle of this month after the remaining three scheduled public hearings.
KMT caucus whip Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said that, as the legislature is set to go on recess on June 16, the process of amending the Constitution would have to be divided into different stages. The KMT hopes to be able to work on the following in the first stage: lower the voting age from 20 to 18, establish absentee voting and lower the threshold for parties to name legislators-at-large from 5 percent of total party votes to 3 percent.
In addition, the legislature’s power to approve the premiership would have to be written into the Constitution, he said.
The DPP caucus was in sync with the KMT on the issues of lowering the voting age and the party ballot threshold to 3 percent for small parties to appoint legislators-at-large. It also proposed the abolition of the Control Yuan and the Examination Yuan, the lowering of the threshold for constitutional amendments and complementary revisions to guarantee basic human rights.
Regarding the KMT’s proposal on absentee voting, the DPP said it is a legislative rather than a constitutional issue, adding that all of the DPP’s five proposals are related either to the electoral system or the constitutional political system.
The DPP caucus also agreed that the constitution-amending process would have to be broken up into stages: The proposals could be made this year and then put to a referendum alongside next year’s presidential and legislative elections, with second-stage constitutional amendments to be decided in 2018, when local elections are scheduled to take place.
After negotiations on Wednesday, a cross-party agreement was reached to extend the current plenary session until June 16, the last day on which the legislature can pass the constitutional amendment bill for a referendum alongside next year’s presidential and legislative elections, which are to take place on Jan. 16.
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