In a bid to lend substance to an otherwise ethereal provision of the Constitution, the legislature yesterday reviewed the draft Initiative and Referendum law (
The legislature's Home and Nations, Judicial and Organic Laws and Statutes committees yesterday jointly reviewed three draft proposals of the law, which would institute a procedure for citizens to establish a new Constitution if it passes muster with the legislature.
According to Article 17 of the Constitution, the people shall have the right of election, recall, initiative and referendum, while Article 136 states that the exercise of the rights of initiative and referendum shall be prescribed by law.
The three proposals, submitted by the Executive Yuan and DPP Legislator Chen Chin-de (
The Executive Yuan's proposal states that the Ministry of the Interior is entitled to set up a committee to review referendum applications, to the exclusion of diplomatic, military, national security, budget, and social welfare policies.
Independent Legislator Sisy Chen (
"The country would be totally shut down if this proposal becomes law," Chen said at the meeting.
Chen argued that important policies of major national concern, such as the inauguration of nuclear power plants, could be abandoned as citizens would be entitled to hold referendums over any construction project which they disliked.
Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) gave no answer to PFP Legislator Chou Hsi-wei's (周錫偉) question about the standards the ministry's committee would use to approve a referendum.
DPP Legislator Lin Cho-shui (
"We should use the law to solve problems that can't be solved by the existing administrative and legislative system," Lin said.
He added that the law would provide a framework for citizens to establish a new Constitution, should they wish to do so.
A similar idea was expressed by former president Lee Teng-hui (
The meeting failed to complete the review yesterday, but the three committees are expected to schedule another review. Another referendum law proposal, submitted by DPP Legislator Trong Chai (蔡同榮) was boycotted by the pan-blue camp last week, which said the bill would upset China.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to