Taiwan must reject four bills backed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to prevent democratic backsliding, Bluebird movement activists told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The bills are a proposed amendment to the Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法), a national security strategy draft act and two amendments to 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).
The Constitutional Court Procedure Act amendment would change the court’s quorum from two-thirds of presently incumbent justices to two-thirds of the full court, Economic Democracy Union convenor Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The court currently consists of 15 grand justices, including seven who are due to retire at the end of October, leaving eight judges sitting on the bench, short of the 10-member threshold stipulated by the amendment, he said.
This means that the KMT and TPP could paralyze the court by refusing to confirm new justices, effectively giving the opposition free reign to pass any law it wishes, Lai said.
The KMT-backed national security strategy bill would empower the premier to draft national security strategy plans, which would be approved by the president and then handed to the legislature for deliberation, he said.
This draft act is an attempt by the legislature to take over the president’s constitutional authority over national security matters, Lai said, adding that bill contravenes the Constitution’s division of powers.
A proposal by opposition lawmakers to shorten the residency requirement for Chinese spouses from six years to four years uses equality as a pretext to give Chinese preferential treatment, Taiwan Citizen Front member Huang Ting-wei (黃亭偉) said.
Non-Chinese foreigners married to Taiwanese face additional hurdles toward obtaining alien residency certificates, including giving up their citizenship of origin and being required to reside in Taiwan for a fixed term without household registration, she said.
Chinese spouses — who already are exempt from these requirements despite being citizens of a hostile state — would have an even shorter path to legal residency, Huang said.
The opposition also proposed to hand the power to establish restricted maritime zones from the military to the Ocean Affairs Council and allow secret cross-strait negotiations to be conducted on the nation’s outlying islands, she said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
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