Taiwan should draft a new constitution that includes rights of self-determination and national sovereignty, as well as protections for the environment, members of the Taiwan Go Go Front said on Wednesday.
“It is time for Taiwan to say goodbye to the outdated Constitution, as it is based on old concepts and the political thinking of Sun Yat-sen (孫中山), founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT),” Green Party Taiwan official Lin Chun-chieh (林俊杰) said during a news conference in Taipei, the day before Constitution Day.
“In Taiwan now we have a democratic system for citizens to directly vote for the president and members of the legislature, and have implemented many reforms,” former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) said.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party
“All of these decisions bear no relationship to the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution of 1947. We need a political movement to draft a new constitution for Taiwan,” he added.
The front was formed earlier this month with involvement from a number of political parties, including the Green Party, New Power Party (NPP), Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Obasang Political Equality Party (TOPEP).
“As long as we are still trapped within the ROC framework, Taiwan is marching down the road to death. Constitution Day was abolished two decades ago, and we should wave it goodbye, as it was imposed on Taiwanese by an exiled Chinese colonial regime,” Taiwan Statebuilding Party chairman Wang Hsing-huan (王興煥) said.
Taiwan should begin a constitutionalism movement based on the principles of rule of law, separation of powers, government accountability, constitutional limits on the power of the government to prevent arbitrary rule, protection of personal rights, the right of self-determination and national sovereignty to be held by all citizens, Wang said.
“This current Constitution is outdated, and lacks safeguards for many fundamental rights. We must draft a new constitution for Taiwan in this new era, for a nation based on participatory democracy, in which we need protection for the environment and from climate change, safeguards for justice and the rule of law, guaranteed housing and personal safety, ensured labor rights, and the right to culture and diversity,” Lin said.
“Taiwan is facing a grave constitutional crisis and the military threat of China,” NPP official Liu Ping-chen (劉品辰) said. “We need a constitution which belongs to Taiwan, to consolidate the power of the citizens, to differentiate ourselves from the enemy state, and one which clearly delineates government authority and separation of powers.”
Shen Pei-ling (沈佩玲), TOPEP Taoyuan chapter director, said the KMT’s political regime with its outdated Constitution is a form of cult of personality, with its preamble of “in accordance with the teachings bequeathed by Dr Sun Yat-sen.”
“We do not need a historic figure, long dead, to base our nation’s Constitution on his anachronistic concepts and political ideology,” Shen said. “Taiwan’s democracy has evolved to this new stage, and we need to have more honest and more pragmatic constitutional articles for citizens of this new Taiwanese democracy.”
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