A proposed referendum to expedite the execution of prisoners sentenced to death is unlikely to be held this year, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said yesterday.
The proposal initiated by Hsu Shao-chan (徐紹展), chairman of the Taiwan Lily Justice Association, was submitted to the CEC in February. The commission on May 11 held a hearing on the proposal’s wording and legal validity.
It asks voters whether they agree with “adding a second clause to Article 145 of the Prison Act (監獄行刑法) stating that the execution of a prisoner sentenced to death should take place within six months of the verdict being handed down, unless otherwise stipulated by law.”
In a legislative hearing yesterday, CEC Chairman Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) was asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee De-wei (李德維) whether the commission was deliberately delaying the proposal to keep it off the ballot.
If the referendum is not formally announced this week, it would not meet the legal requirements to be held this year, he said.
Lee Chin-yung said that the proposed referendum likely “will not make it in time” to be held this year.
He said the reason was the proposal’s late submission date, not because his agency was trying to delay it.
According to the Referendum Act (公民投票法), referendums can be held on the fourth Saturday of August once every two years starting from 2021.
The CEC is required to announce a referendum at least 90 days before it takes place, in a notice containing the vote’s date, time, official text and the reasons for its proposal.
To pass, a referendum question must receive “yes” votes from at least one-quarter of all eligible voters, and the number of “yes” votes must exceed that of the “no” votes.
In the nation’s previous non-constitutional referendum in 2021, all four questions were rejected.
It consisted of questions on resuming construction at the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), banning pork imports containing the additive ractopamine, holding referendums alongside elections and relocating the construction site of a planned natural gas terminal from an algal reef off Taoyuan.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
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