The Legislative Yuan yesterday agreed to vote next week -- one day before the presidential election -- on a bill that would slash in half the number of seats in the 225-member parliament.
But several opposition lawmakers accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of rushing the decision on a major constitutional revision to attract voters in the March 20 presidential poll.
Legislative caucuses yesterday morning reached agreement that the constitutional amendment would get its second and third reading on March 19.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The caucuses also demanded that the Constitutional Amendment Committee expedite the process for reviewing other articles, including one that would abolish the National Assembly, which convenes only when constitutional reforms or national boundary changes have been passed by the legislature by a three-quarters majority or when a move to impeach the president or vice president has been passed by a two-thirds majority.
The legislature also agreed to hold an additional session on March 18 to discuss the bill governing political donations.
The Constitutional Amendment committee approved a draft bill on Wednesday that said parliament should be reduced to 113 seats in 2008.
It also agreed that legislators' terms should be extended from three years to four.
Meanwhile, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislators Apollo Chen (陳學聖) and Hsu Chung-hsiung (徐中雄), and People First Party (PFP) Legislator Sheu Yuan-kuo (許淵國) have started a petition drive to cancel the decision to vote on the amendment.
"We want all the articles to be fully discussed and reviewed by the Constitutional Amendment Committee first," Chen said regarding the purpose of the petition.
"Rushing the article through before March 20 is irresponsible and amounts to breaking the political speed limit," Hsu said.
"Many legislators disagree with the constitutional amendment, but they are too afraid to speak up. The real problem with the legislature does not lie in the number of seats, but rather in its quality, and to improve the quality, we should focus on the election system and constituency," he said.
Some DPP legislators agreed that it is necessary to pass all the constitutional amendments in the committee before sending them back to the legislature, and that the legislative reform should be more comprehensively discussed, but they still supported passing the articles before the election.
"The article that was passed on Wednesday was not comprehensive enough. The committee did not consult the experts' opinions The legislative procedure for the amendment is problematic," said DPP legislator Chen Chin-te (
"Although I think the current articles can be improved, I would still like to have the article on halving the legislative seats passed before the election, otherwise there is no knowing what will happen to the amendment," said DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung (
Although Lee attended Chen, Hsu and Sheu's press conference, he did not sign their petition.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
RSS