Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said he supported a constitutional amendment that does not touch upon the nation’s status and a switch from the current semi-presidential system to a parliamentary one.
Constitutional reform has been a long-term goal of the DPP and the issue has resurfaced after recent anti-government protests.
Reform “is necessary to resolve the conflict between the administrative and legislative branches,” Su told reporters.
He recommended seven areas for reform last week, including increasing the number of lawmakers from 113 to between 200 and 300.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has criticized the DPP for being inconsistent, since it backed the slimming down of the Legislative Yuan from 225 seats to 113 during the former DPP administration.
Ma “should not dwell on the past and refuse to plan for the future,” the DPP chairman said yesterday.
Most people support constitutional reform because of the stalemate inside the government “as long as the amendment does not touch on general provisions — such as the first chapter of the Constitution, and disputes over the nation’s name, national flag and territory,” he said.
A switch from a semi-presidential system, which critics said has turned into a “super-presidential system,” to a parliamentary system would be the best way to resolve the political deadlock, Su said.
The basis for suggesting increasing the number of legislative seats is twofold — pure mathematics and enforcement of diverse representation, Su said.
Under the parliamentary system, as many as 50 to 60 lawmakers could become Cabinet members, which impedes efficiency, while increasing the number of lawmakers would promote better representation by bringing in young politicians, smaller political parties and underprivileged groups, he said.
Former DPP chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is favored to win the party’s chairmanship election on Sunday, said the public’s negative impressions of the presidential system are a result of “the president’s abuse of power and the lack of checks and balances on him.”
However, she said that consensus-building can take a long time and she would not want to conclude which system is better without a comprehensive public discussion.
National Dong Hwa University professor Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒) criticized the DPP for flip-flopping.
“The DPP favored the presidential system when it was the ruling party and it prefers the parliamentary system when it is in opposition,” Shih said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS