A coalition of civil groups yesterday expressed concern that the Central Election Commission’s proposed changes to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) could restrict people’s rights and result in “a step backward for democracy.”
While they do agree with a number of changes the commission proposed last month, more could turn the law back to the “bird cage act” it once was, they told a Taipei news conference.
Before the legislature in December 2017 passed amendments to lower the legal voting age and the thresholds for initiating, seconding and passing referendums, the act was widely mocked as a “bird cage” act due to its tight restrictions.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
However, the amendments led to a number of execution difficulties during the Nov. 24 referendums, held on the same day as the nine-in-one elections, prompting the commission to consider more amendments.
The commission’s proposal to introduce more flexibility for determining referendum dates could lower the turnout rate for referendums, Animal Protection Administration Oversight Committee convener Wang Wei-chi (王唯治) said.
His group is “strongly opposed” to amending the law to allow holding referendums and elections on separate days whenever the commission considers that necessary, he said.
Wang is also opposed to the commission’s plan to require referendum initiators to collect hard copies of people’s identification cards in addition to signatures, saying it could make people less willing to support a proposal due to privacy concerns.
The public could also be less interested in participating in referendums if the commission limited a referendum question to 30 Chinese characters, he said.
“Many already find referendum questions difficult to understand. Adding a 30-character limit would make them even more difficult,” he said.
He agrees with the commission that a referendum proposal should undergo a longer wait period before the public can vote on it, but while the commission proposed holding the referendum three to six months after it is approved, he suggested holding it five to 12 months after the approval to allow more time for consideration and preparation.
Aletheia University associate professor of law Wu Ching-chin (吳景欽) said he is opposed to the commission’s plan to ban referendum questions on human rights, because it could grant the commission more power to sanction referendum topics.
“Human rights as a concept is very abstract and can take many different forms. In fact, almost all referendums held last year were related to human rights,” he said.
Banning anything related to human rights would be a step backward, he added.
To protect human rights, the government should enhance mechanisms for victims of unfair referendums to seek justice through the Council of Grand Justices, he said.
However, he agrees with the commission’s plan to ban campaigns on referendums on the day they are held, he said.
Under the current act, referendum campaigns can be held on the day of referendums as long as they are at least 30m away from polling stations, “but 30m is not that far and that could allow referendum initiators with more resources to influence the results,” he said.
In addition to the commission’s proposal, a number of Democratic Progressive Party legislators have put forward draft amendments to the act, Wang said, urging legislators to “watch out for traps” set by the commission to undercut progress in democracy.
Additional reporting by Ann Maxon
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater