Referendum Review Committee members and academics yesterday debated whether a referendum proposal submitted by Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) should be voted on at poll stations at a public hearing.
Following the Referendum Review Committee’s rejection on June 3 of a referendum proposal submitted by Huang asking voters whether they agree with the government’s decision to sign the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China, Huang submitted another referendum proposal asking the same question one day after the government inked the agreement with China on June 29.
The second ECFA referendum proposal, like the first one, asks the question: “Do you agree that the government should sign the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement [ECFA] with China?”
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FONG, TAIPEI TIMES
A public hearing was held yesterday. However, right before the hearing officially started, participants began a heated debate on whether representatives from the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) should be present.
“We are here to examine whether the referendum proposal meets the requirements stipulated in the Referendum Act (公民投票法), and it has nothing to do with either the council or the ministry,” Huang told the public hearing. “I have served as the council’s chief, I know it well. The two agencies should not be present here.”
He went on to say that the MAC and the MOEA may know better about the impacts of the ECFA on economy and on cross-strait relations, “but the impacts of the ECFA has nothing to do whatsoever with whether the referendum proposal should be approved.”
Committee chairman Chao Yung-mao (趙永茂), who presided over the meeting, disagreed with Huang, saying that the ECFA concerns both the council and the ministry, and representatives from both were present at the previous public hearing on the ECFA referendum.
As the two could not reach consensus, Huang left the meeting in protest, and the meeting continued without him.
Voicing his opposition to the referendum, Ministry of Economic Affairs Vice Minister Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠) said that a referendum would not be needed since the government has frequent communication with the legislature, adding that “no other developed countries have held referendums on trade agreements.”
Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), assistant political science professor at Soochow University, urged the Referendum Review Committee members to focus on whether the proposal meets the legal requirements of the Referendum Act (公民投票法), not what consequences such a referendum would bring.
“It’s not your business to predict what consequences the referendum would bring, and, actually, political consequences are often unpredictable,” Hsu said. “Thirty years ago when I was in high school, some people were also opposed to direct election of the president, and now I’m hearing similar arguments about a referendum.”
A legal research fellow at Academia Sinica, Fort Liao (廖福特), reminded committee members that “your job is to assist our fellow citizens to execute their right to a referendum.”
The committee will decide next week whether to approve it.
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