The Central Election Commission (CEC) should request the Council of Grand Justices to rule on whether recall campaigning restrictions are unconstitutional, Appendectomy Project campaigners said yesterday at a protest outside the commission’s offices in Taipei.
“We hope the CEC can go along with public opinion and accept the recommendation of the Taipei City Election Commission to send this case to the Grand Justices,” Appendectomy Project spokesman Lin Tzu-yi (林祖儀) said.
On Thursday, the Taipei commission granted activists a stay from an estimated NT$600,000 (US$18,308) in fines for violating the Election and Recall Act for Public Servants (公職人員選舉罷免法), recommending the CEC request the Grand Justices to rule on whether the law’s ban on recall campaigning violated freedom of speech.
Activists had handed out pamphlets and held marches and rallies as part of a failed effort to recall Chinese Nationalist Party Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元).
“The Taipei commission is in a difficult place because the law is still in place, but is highly controversial,” Lin said, adding that judicial intervention was necessary because amendments to drop the ban on recall campaigning have stalled in the Legislative Yuan.
Activists have criticized the ban, saying that it violates freedom of speech and the people’s “right to know” while making it nearly impossible to achieve the 50 percent voter turnout necessary for the recall result to be valid.
Taipei City Election Commission Deputy Director-General Huang Hsi-ming (黃細明) on Thursday criticized the ban for banning all campaign activity throughout the recall process regardless of time and place, unlike restrictions on campaigning on election days.
Lin said that while the recall campaigners were confident of a favorable ruling if the Grand Justices heard their case, they were concerned that the CEC would refuse to request a constitutional review.
Throughout recall efforts, the CEC had shown itself to be more “rigid” than the local Taipei commission, Lin said. He said that during recall efforts, it had also refused requests to outline what promotional measures would be legal, telling recall campaigners that a judgement could only be made after the fact on a “case-by-case” basis.
Independent legislative candidate Lin Shao-chi (林少馳) — a former Appendectomy Project volunteer — also called for the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act to be amended to drop turnout vote requirements, while also mandating an automatic recall vote to be held for all legislators two years after they are elected.
CEC Deputy Chairman Chen Wen-sheng (陳文生) said that the commission would hold a meeting to discuss the Taipei commission’s recommendation, adding that the commission itself had recommended the Legislative Yuan amend the law to drop the restrictions.
TRAFFIC SAFETY RULES: A positive result in a drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday. The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers. While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said. The proposed changes to the regulations require
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS