Three packages of amendments approved by the legislature would be “difficult to implement,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday, adding that the Cabinet would seek “remedies” under the Constitution.
With the support of the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), the amendments passed on Friday after hours of brawls between lawmakers from the opposition and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The amendments included changes to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) that stipulate those proposing a recall and those signing petitions provide a copy of the front and back of their national IDs.
Photo: Taipei Times
Amendments to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法) require 10 judges to attend court sessions and nine judges to agree before legislation can be declared unconstitutional.
Amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) increase funding allocations to local governments.
Cho said in a statement that the Cabinet “regrets” the passage of new measures to tighten recall petition requirements, curb the Constitutional Court’s ability to rule on cases and affect the central government’s budget.
The provisions did not go through comprehensive deliberation in the legislature, he said.
The premier did not specify what the executive branch planned to do next, and a Cabinet official who declined to be named said the matter was still being discussed.
The Cabinet can seek to reject a law passed by the legislature by requesting the lawmaking body reconsider it, or bring it to the Constitutional Court once the law takes effect.
Earlier this year, Cho’s Cabinet took similar measures after KMT and TPP lawmakers passed a package of revisions granting the legislature broader investigative powers, most of which were halted by the Constitutional Court.
DPP lawmakers, who entered the legislative chamber the previous night to block Friday’s meeting, said that the new measures had not been discussed thoroughly and inter-party negotiations had failed to resolve the differences.
President William Lai (賴清德) said that the measures would “deprive” people of their right to petition for a recall of elected officials, impose “unreasonable thresholds” for Constitutional Court rulings and risk “endangering national security” by potentially forcing the government to cut back on defense spending.
Lai also made an enigmatic comment yesterday, saying that “democratic disputes should be resolved with even greater democracy.”
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), in a social media post yesterday criticized DPP lawmakers’ efforts to stall Friday’s session, calling them an “attempt to paralyze the legislature.”
The KMT said the new measures would prevent recall petitions from being “abused,” avoid “biased” rulings by the Constitutional Court and help alleviate local governments’ “fiscal deficits.”
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS