KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) has given his approval to a suggestion by a member of the party's Central Standing Committee that the voting age in Taiwan be lowered to 18 years. This is a proposal worth supporting.
Full civic rights at age 18 is the trend among democracies. It also places an importance on young people that a mature democratic society should do so.
From the perspective of developmental democracy, when a citizen of a political community participates in the debate over community affairs, he or she not only completes community affairs through common civic action, but the participation in public affairs also creates a more complete development of the individual.
True democracy creates participatory discourse and action at society's grassroots level. The inclusion of full civic rights at the age of 18 is not simply an expansion of the rights of a group of people. It also allows young people;e the opportunity to learn from public discourse how to listen carefully and how to interact with others in a positive way, thus extending the social scope of the democratic mechanism.
Apart from a minority of countries such as Japan and South Korea where the voting age is still 20, advanced countries such as the US, the UK, Germany and France have already lowered voting age to 18 years.
The call for full civic rights at the age of 18 is not only a call for fair social treatment of the young, but it is also a call to respect the culture of the young and their way of living, as well as a call to recognize them as an independent group and to legitimize their legal, social and cultural rights.
Full civic rights at 18 is also a call for self-realization and individual recognition. As part of the process of consolidating Tai-wan's democracy, allowing young people more opportunity to participate in public affairs is a necessary step toward creating a mature civic culture. Allowing the young to participate in public decisions sooner rather than later also agrees with democratic trends.
To fight for the civic and social rights of Taiwan's younger citizens, the DPP in 1999 incorporated full civic rights at the age of 18 into its constitutional amendment proposal to the National Assembly.
The KMT's Assembly members, however, led a move to kill the civic rights amendment prior to the second reading, without any giving any reasons or explanations.
At the time, the DPP's Depart-ment of Youth Development lodged a strong protest.
Today, a national consensus in favor of full civic rights at the age of 18 is gradually forming, and it is hoped that the ruling and opposition parties will work together towards amending the Constitution.
Apart from lowering the voting age from 20 to 18 years, the anachronistic Article 35 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (
Times are different today and a full review of Taiwan's civic rights is necessary in an effort to correlate civic rights with civic responsibilities.
Yuan Hsiu-huiy is deputy director of the DPP's Department of Youth Development.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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