The Constitutional amendment bill on legislative reform and downsizing passed in the legislature yesterday, so that from 2008, the nation will adopt the "single-member district, two-vote system" for legislative elections, and there will be only 113 legislative seats.
Of the 201 lawmakers present at the sitting, 200 voted "yes" to legislative reform.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The new changes will take effect during the 7th legislative session -- in 2008 -- during which time lawmakers' tenures would be lengthened from three to four years.
Out of the 113 seats, 73 will be regional lawmakers, with each city and country electing at least one. Plains Aborigines will have three seats, and mountain Aborigines also three.
Legislators-at-large and overseas Chinese legislator seats will comprise 34 seats, which will be distributed to each party according to the proportion of the party votes they obtain.
Only those parties with more than 5 percent of the total votes cast will be given legislator-at-large and overseas Chinese legislator seats, and at least 50 percent of these seats will be reserved for women.
The National Assembly would also be abolished, and after it is abolished, bills regarding constitutional amendments and territory changes will need to be ratified by the public via referendum after being passed by the legislature.
The amendment bill was passed after most parties showed their utmost determination for legislative reform yesterday by sending their top officials to the legislature to communicate with the caucuses and pledge with the public.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) went to the legislature to visit their own caucuses.
The bill included amendments to Articles 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 and 12 of the Additional Articles to the Constitution, in order to abolish the National Assembly, reform the legislature and regulate the methods for impeaching the president and vice president.
Ironically, a National Assembly must be formed via election six months after the amendments are promulgated to ratify the amendments.
The newly-passed amendments also stipulate that when the legislature wants to pass a resolution to impeach the president or vice president, the resolution needs to be proposed by a simple majority, and the consent of two thirds of the Legislative Yuan.
After the resolution is passed, the legislature can ask the Council of Grand Justices to review the resolution in the Constitutional Court, and if the court agrees with the resolution, the official to be impeached will be relieved of his or her title and power immediately.
Before the amendment bill was discussed yesterday, the various caucuses took part in a negotiation session hosted by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
The caucuses finally managed to work out a new version, which basically followed the KMT's original proposal on the amendment, although the alliance of independent lawmakers declared they did not agree to "rushing through" the amendment bill and refused to endorse the negotiated settlement.
Although the alliance lawmakers abstained, the amendment bill still passed according to the negotiation conclusion.
The conclusion on all articles except Article 12 then was considered as a joint proposal by the KMT, the DPP, the PFP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucuses.
The KMT, the DPP and the PFP agreed to amend Article 12 to allow the public to ratify via referendum the constitutional amendment bill passed by the legislature, but refrained from allowing the public to initiate constitutional amendment bills via referendum. The TSU, however, insisted on the right to initiate amendments via referendum, and offered its own version of the article.
Although the DPP supported the TSU's version of the bill, the pan-greens did not have enough votes to pass the bill, and the DPP finally supported the pan-blues' bill, which later passed.
"After several negotiations, today we finally finish the third reading of the constitutional amendment bill, and this is the first time the Legislative Yuan has passed a constitutional amendment bill. It is a major moment in our country's constitutional history," Wang said during the sitting, after the amendment bill was passed.
Wang later said that the legislature was ready to send the bill to the Presidential Office for promulgation today.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS