Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Liu I-chou (劉義周) yesterday said he would recommend the commission overturn fines against the Appendectomy Project after facing questions from lawmakers.
“I have always believed that Article 86 of the Civil Servants Election And Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) [forbidding publicizing ongoing recall campaigns] was out of step with the times and should not be enforced,” he said in response to questions from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lai Rui-lung (賴瑞隆) at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee.
A final decision on the matter would depend on the consensus of the commission as a whole, Liu said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
“While I do not believe fines should be levied in this case, I still do not know what recommendations other commission members will make,” he said.
The committee passed a resolution calling for the commission to consider canceling the fine because of concerns that Article 86 of the act is at odds with freedom of speech, while the legislature is considering amendments to the act.
Several legislators urged Liu to take a stand on the issue after the Taipei City Election Commission on Tuesday fined Appendectomy Project organizers NT$600,000 over publication activities last year related to a recall campaign targeting former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元).
The project sought to recall several KMT lawmakers following the Sunflower movement in 2014, but only forced a vote on Tsai, who survived after turnout did not reach the 50 percent required for a recall vote to be valid.
Lai said the fine is “extremely inappropriate,” citing a consensus among lawmakers, the Ministry of the Interior and the Central Election Commission that the article forbidding promotion of ongoing recall campaigns should be revised.
“They should have put the matter on hold until the newly elected legislature had a chance to handle the matter,” Lai said, adding that the Central Election Commission should overturn the fine.
The Taipei City Election Commission initially refused to issue the fine after ruling that the organizers had breached the act by promoting the then-ongoing recall campaign, recommending that the Central Election Commission seek a court ruling on the act’s constitutionality.
DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) — who also serves as Internal Administration Committee coconvener — accused the Central Election Commission of wrongly rejecting the recommendation, adding that the body should have sought a ruling given its stance that the provisions be revised.
The Central Election Commission’s report to the Internal Administration Committee yesterday said that it “supported” revising restrictions on the promotion of recall campaigns and “respected” calls to decrease the number of signatures required to trigger a vote.
It recommended against revising the 50 percent turnout threshold for results to be valid on the grounds that frequent recall votes would be wasteful.
Before the committee meeting, Liu said that the Central Election Commission would not overturn the Taipei City Election Commission’s decision “unless it was clearly illegal.”
DPP Legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) called Liu “two-faced” — a reference to a traditional Taiwanese puppet show character who refuses to choose between good and evil, delighting chiefly in the defeat of others.
“To call for you to take a side is not a motion from nowhere; you have already said that you think the law should be revised because it is out of touch with the times,” Chuang said of Liu. “You should use your executive authority to cancel the fine, as the law is on the brink of being amended.”
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS