An ad hoc committee next year hopes to present viable options to legislators to relocate the Legislative Yuan, Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) said on Sunday last week.
You said in an interview that he has instructed the committee to prepare the options — with an eye to present them by 2023 — as he has supported such ideas since he became speaker on Feb. 1, 2020.
Since 1960, the Legislative Yuan has been housed in a former dormitory of what was Taipei Second Girls’ Senior High School during the Japanese colonial period.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The building is leased to the legislature by the Taipei City Government and many of its adjunct buildings are of historical significance, posing a problem for potential expansion.
The committee has had two meetings and is to provide legislators with options once it has assessed opinions on the issue from different sectors and industries, You said.
Legislative Yuan Secretary-General Lin Jih-jia (林志嘉) said that the legislature should move as soon as possible.
A different image, location and environment would presage a change in mindset for legislators and the public’s expectations of them, Lin said.
Only a big shift at the legislature would induce a change in its systems and culture, he said.
On other issues, You said that the government would have achieved partial success if it pushes through a referendum for a constitutional amendment to lower the legal age for voting to 18.
Even if such a referendum did not pass, the government would have shown that there is an issue with the high threshold for constitutional amendments, he said.
Lowering the voting age is among several constitutional amendments that have been proposed at the legislature.
An ad hoc constitutional amendment committee was formed on Oct. 6, 2020.
Any proposed constitutional amendments would have to receive the backing of at least one-quarter of the 113 lawmakers to be forwarded to the procedural committee, which would assign them to the 39-member constitutional amendment committee for review.
For a proposal to be approved, it must be backed by at least half of the members of the constitutional amendment committee at a meeting attended by at least one-third of its members.
Then, it would have to be approved by at least three-quarters of the legislature, with at least three-quarters in attendance.
Should that threshold be met, the proposal would be put to a public referendum.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by