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.
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