Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) yesterday proposed a draft amendment to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) that would bar people who have been convicted of security breaches from running in national or local elections.
People convicted of offenses relating to organized crime, money laundering, firearms or drugs would be barred from election to civil servant positions if the amendments pass, Lo said on Monday, when the amendments were being drafted.
Since then, further restrictions were added barring candidacies of those who have been found guilty of security breaches under the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法), the National Security Act (國家安全法), the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法) and the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法).
Photo courtesy of Lo Chih-cheng’s office
It is hoped that the amendments can be passed in the next legislative session, to begin in February, and promulgated before the 2024 legislative and presidential elections, he said.
The DPP caucus is waiting to examine similar proposed amendments that are expected from other lawmakers and the Executive Yuan, and would consider integrating their ideas before introducing its own amendment to the legislature, he added.
Lo’s draft is to be submitted to a preliminary committee review rather than undergo procedures for a second reading, as the amendments would have far-reaching effects and require a careful review, he said.
Separately yesterday, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) instructed the Cabinet to submit its version of the draft amendments by Thursday next week, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said, adding that the Cabinet version is to include input from additional stakeholders.
Lo Ping-cheng said Su has instructed him to supervise and direct the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior to submit and pass the draft amendments “as an active response to public expectations” that people with such criminal records would be barred from the next national election.
The proposal is not meant to discriminate against former convicts, but to apply higher standards to those who would have public power and control public resources, the spokesman added.
Additional reporting by Chung Li-hua
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS