The Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee yesterday passed a preliminary review of proposed amendments to the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) raising penalties for ticket scalping, noise disturbances and stalking offenses.
The maximum fine for unauthorized reselling of transportation or entertainment tickets not intended for personal use would be increased from NT$18,000 to NT$30,000, the draft amendment says.
The committee also approved a resolution calling on authorities to propose within two months amendments targeting the scalping of medical, hospitality, and other voucher-based products and services.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The resolution states that while the act generally handles minor offenses through administrative penalties, scalping can involve “substantial illegal gains and seriously harm the interests of consumers.”
The changes were proposed by committee members Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋), Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) and Lin Szu-ming (林思銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) alongside independent Legislator May Chin (高金素梅).
Opposing the proposed changes, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) told the meeting that legislation on the scalping of tickets for cultural and sports events is already covered under the Development of the Cultural and Creative Industries Act (文化創意產業發展法) and the Sport Industry Development Act (運動產業發展條例).
Illegally reselling medical and hospitality vouchers should be regulated under separate laws set by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to “avoid excessive administrative discretion by police,” she added.
Liu also warned against listing multiple kinds of tickets in the law, saying it risked overlooking some categories.
Separately, the committee approved a clause raising the maximum fine for noise disturbances from NT$6,000 to NT$10,000.
The proposal was introduced by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) caucus and KMT Legislator Chiu Jo-hua (邱若華), who said that current fines are too low to be an effective deterrent.
In another amendment, KMT legislators Lu Ming-che (魯明哲) and Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) proposed increasing fines for “stalking another person without justifiable reasons, despite having been dissuaded,” from NT$3,000 to NT$30,000.
The 14-member committee approved the proposed increases following cross-party discussions.
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,
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
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS