The Central Election Commission (CEC) said yesterday it was not authorized to deal with incumbent lawmakers who hold dual citizenship in the legislature and it has yet to decide what to do with those who possessed dual citizenship in previous legislatures.
The meeting comes in the wake of questions over the citizenship status of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) and former Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator George Liu (劉寬平), who is now the nation’s representative to Switzerland.
The Chinese-language Next Magazine claimed in March that Lee still holds US citizenship.
Last month the magazine reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) had received confirmation from the US government that Lee holds US citizenship. Lee has denied both reports while the ministry said it had never asked the US government to verify Lee’s citizenship status.
Liu — who took up his post in Switzerland in February — said earlier this month that he had filed an application to relinquish his US citizenship at the end of last year but the process was not yet complete.
That raised the question of whether he had violated the Nationality Act (國籍法) by serving as a legislator from 2005 to this year while still a US citizen.
Article 20 of the Nationality Act, which took effect on June 20, 2001, stipulates that foreign citizens are prohibited from holding government office.
While the legislature has launched its own investigation into the foreign citizenship or residency status of lawmakers, the commission met for three hours yesterday to discuss how it would handle the issues. But no conclusion was reached.
“There was an article in the Election and Recall Law of Public Servants (公職人員選舉罷免法) that stipulated the Central Election Commission could handle cases where legislators or legislators-elect held dual nationality — but the article was removed last November,” commission Chairman Chang Cheng-hsiung (張政雄) told reporters after the meeting.
That means the commission is not empowered to deal with the nationality issue in the current legislature, he said.
“We did decide in the meeting that we do have the authority to deal with dual citizenship cases if they occurred between 2000 to 2008 [when the article was still in effect], but we did not reach a consensus on how to do so,” he said.
Chang said the commission could either invalidate a legislator’s election or revoke their position, but “commission members have differed on which measure to take.”
He said the commission members did not discuss individual cases yesterday, which were “left until the next meeting.”
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported the return of large-scale Chinese air force activities after their unexplained absence for more than two weeks, which had prompted speculation regarding Beijing’s motives. China usually sends fighter jets, drones and other military aircraft around the nation on a daily basis. Interruptions to such routine are generally caused by bad weather. The Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft in the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours. It last reported that many aircraft on Feb. 25, when it spotted 30 aircraft, saying Beijing was carrying out another “joint combat
Taiwan successfully defended its women’s 540 kilogram title and won its first-ever men’s 640 kg title at the 2026 World Indoor Tug of War Championships in Taipei yesterday. In the women’s event, Taiwan’s eight-person squad reached the final following a round-robin preliminary round and semifinals featuring teams from Ukraine, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, the Basque Country and South Korea. In the finals, they swept the Basque team 2-0, giving the team composed mainly of National Taiwan Normal University students and graduates its second championship in a row, and its fourth in five years. Team captain
When Paraguayan opposition lawmaker Leidy Galeano returned from an all-expenses-paid tour of six Chinese cities late last year, she was convinced Paraguay risked missing out on major economic gains by sticking with longtime ally Taipei over Beijing — a message that participants on the trip heard repeatedly from Chinese officials. “Everything I saw there, I wanted for my country,” said Galeano, a member of the newly-formed Yo Creo party whose senior figures have spoken favorably about China. This trip and others like it — which people familiar with the visits said were at the invitation of the Chinese consulate in Sao Paulo
RSS