While the New Power Party (NPP) caucus had proposed constitutional amendments, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday said that constitutional reform is a “false issue” because amending the Constitution has been made almost impossible, and only establishing a new constitution altogether would help Taiwan.
“Constitutional amendment is a false issue, because amendments passed in 2005 made it almost impossible to amend the Constitution,” TSU spokeswoman Chou Ni-an (周倪安) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
“According to constitutional amendments [passed in 2005], endorsements from one-quarter of the legislators, or 29 seats, are required to propose a constitutional amendment, three-quarters of the legislators, or 85 seats, must attend the meeting [to propose an amendment] and three-quarters of those who attend the meeting, or 64 seats, must agree to the proposal,” Chou said. “After the amendment proposal passed the first phase, it would be put to a public referendum within six months after its proposal.”
For the amendment proposal to pass the referendum, 50 percent of the total number of eligible voters must vote “yes,” Chou said.
Chou said that as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) holds an absolute majority in the legislature, the party should help to revise the Referendum Act (公民投票法) to lower the threshold for referendums on constitutional amendments.
“The TSU would then work with civil society to push for creating a new constitution,” she said.
TSU Department of Social Movements director Chang Chao-lin (張兆林) said that while the party supports constitutional amendments proposed by the NPP to lower the voting age from 20 to 18 and abolish the Taiwan Provincial Government, “they [the NPP] overlooked the high threshold passed in the seventh constitutional reform [in 2005].”
Chang said that the majority of Taiwanese voted for the more Taiwan-oriented DPP because they expected the party to create a better environment for Taiwan to become a new and independent nation.
“Creating a new Constitution through a referendum is the best way to keep Taiwan independent, protect the people’s rights and fight against China’s ambitions on Taiwan,” Chang said. “We should not waste time on impossible constitutional reform.”
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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