Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Rai Hau-min (賴浩敏) yesterday reiterated his belief that the newly amended Election and Recall Act for Public Servants (公職人員選舉罷免法) may be in violation of the Constitution.
“I’ve said before [at legislative meetings] that the law’s revision may be unconstitutional, and I still hold the same view today,” Rai said. “But only the Council of Grand Justices has the power to decide whether it’s unconstitutional.”
“As the head of the CEC, of course I do not want the commission to hold an election that would be later declared invalid,” he added, “but again, the CEC makes decisions as a whole, so I cannot promise what the CEC will do, but I will raise the issue at commission meetings.”
Rai made the remark after a meeting with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator William Lai (賴清德) yesterday. Lai, who holds a similar view, called on the CEC to act.
Despite opposition from the DPP, amendments to the election law were passed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-dominated legislature last week. The amended bill stipulates that current electoral districts should remain unchanged for the next decade, even though many cities and counties are going to merge and become special municipalities in November.
Originally, the numbers of legislative seats in the Special Municipalities of Tainan and Kaohsiung — after city-county mergers — were subject to possible change because of the change in their populations, but now the numbers of seats will remain the same because of the amendment.
“The newly revised election law is unconstitutional,” Lai told the press after meeting with Rai. “If the Council of Grand Justices declares it unconstitutional after the next legislative election [in 2012] because someone files an application for a constitutional interpretation, the election results could become invalid and we would have to hold the election all over again.”
“Hence the CEC should intervene before it happens,” Lai added.
According to the Constitution, each special municipality, each city and each county should elect its own representatives to the Legislative Yuan according to its population, so Lai believes it is unconstitutional to keep the numbers of seats the same despite the mergers.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
‘JOINT SWORD’: Whatever President Lai says in his Double Ten speech, China would use it as a pretext to launch ‘punishment’ drills for his ‘separatist’ views, an official said China is likely to launch military drills this week near Taiwan, using President William Lai’s (賴清德) upcoming national day speech as a pretext to pressure the nation to accept its sovereignty claims, Taiwanese officials said. China in May launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan shortly after Lai’s inauguration, in what Beijing said was a response to “separatist acts,” sending heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated Lai. The May drills were dubbed “Joint Sword — 2024A” and drew concerns from capitals, including Washington. Lai is to deliver a key speech on Thursday in front of the Presidential Office
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Taiwan was listed in 14th place among the world's wealthiest country in terms of GDP per capita, in the latest rankings released on Monday by Forbes magazine. Taiwan's GDP per capita was US$76,860, which put it at No. 14 on the list of the World's 100 Richest Countries this year, one spot above Hong Kong with US$75,130. The magazine's list of the richest countries in the world is compiled based on GDP per capita data, as estimated by the IMF. However, for a more precise measure of a nation's wealth, the magazine also considers purchasing power parity, which is a metric used to
RSS