President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen has vowed to carry out more constitutional reforms during the remainder of his presidency -- despite the fact that the opposition parties, which control the legislature, said they will not support further reforms. He made the statement at the opening of a two day conference on constitutional re-engineering, which was sponsored by the Presidential Office's Constitutional Reform Promotion Panel.
"I am the most suitable person to promote constitutional reform, as I am now under no pressure to be re-elected," Chen said. His second term in office expires in 2008.
Following constitutional reforms focusing on the legislature which were approved in June, some officials advocate further reforms focusing on the governmental system. Chen said the next phase of reforms is expected to address issues such as whether to change the country's political system to a presidential system or parliamentary system; protection of basic human rights; defining the rights and obligations of the central and the local governments; streamlining the government agencies; lowering the voting age from 20 to 18; and adopting a voluntary military service system.
Furthermore, the current Constitution provides no way to resolve political stalemates caused by the flawed design of the governmental system, which paralyzes the Executive Yuan whenever the Legislative Yuan is controlled by an opposition party, Chen said.
In the next two years, he will make every effort to be a "constitutional reform crusader," noting that the government will recruit instructors and hold 10,000 seminars to invite public discussion by 2007 in a constitutional reform awareness campaign.
"By the time I complete my presidency in 2008, I hope to hand to Taiwan a new version of our Constitution -- one that is timely, relevant and viable," he said.
Chen said the nation's government system has tilted toward a presidential one, but the president still has no right to veto bills passed by the legislature and can only dissolve the legislature if the legislature topples the Cabinet, he said.
The nation's governance has stalled, Chen added, which he asserted was "definitely related to our Constitution which can't provide a legal mechanism to solve political stalemates."
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