Taiwan should abolish the 50 percent turnout requirement for referendums, promote offensive instead of defensive referendums and secure balloting secrecy in referendums, according to the Initiative and Referendum Institute (IRI) Europe.
Bruno Kaufmann, president of IRI Europe, and Mattias Goldmann, special advisor to IRI Sweden, made the recommendations in their joint paper Taiwan 2004 Referendum Assessment Report published on Monday.
Since last autumn, IRI has been offering advice on holding referendums. Two members of IRI Europe, including Kaufmann, were invited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to monitor the March 20 referendum. They conducted a Taiwan Referendum Observation Mission between March 16 and March 23.
The two referendum questions failed because neither achieved the 50-percent turnout requirement.
The IRI Europe study said the 50- percent requirement significantly interfered with a free and fair democratic process. Such a threshold encouraged people to adopt boycotting tactics and did not enhance the dialogue and learning process between citizens, it added.
"No" votes and non-votes had been added together, making it very difficult to have a proposal adopted, the paper said.
"It is our strong recommendation, based on worldwide experience, to abolish the 50-percent turnout quorum in the Referendum Law (
The researchers noted that the "defensive referendum" called by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) under Article 17 of the Referendum Law became a victim of bipartisan competition, since it was held alongside the presidential election.
IRI Europe strongly recommended using "offensive" referendums on separate voting days in the future in order, it said, to promote the constructive elements of direct democracy.
"By `offensive' referendums we mean popular initiatives coming from the people of Taiwan and mandatory referendums on constitutional matters, as proposed by the opposition presidential candidate, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰)," the paper said.
IRI Europe also noted that in the March 20 referendum, people were forced to reveal whether they were taking part in the referendum or not, after having voted in the election. This interfered with the principle of confidentiality in democratic elections and referendums and should be avoided in the future, it said.
"The problem could be solved by not combining an election with a referendum, as well as by abolishing the 50-percent turnout requirement. But even if these factors remain, it is possible to secure voting secrecy by not physically separating the voting procedures," the study said.
Kaufmann and Goldmann observed preparations and voting in the referendum in several places in Taipei and Tainan.
A clear commitment to direct democracy, trouble-free execution, campaign effort, ballot papers, a specific referendum law and the existence of a legal body, the Referendum Review Commission, were cited by the paper as positive aspects of the referendum.
Driven by a strong commitment to direct democracy, discussions on the referendum focused on the specific procedures and the design, "which -- in comparison to many much older democracies in the West -- can be seen as an achievement," the study said.
The turnout quorum, the timing of the referendum, the "defensive referendum" eligibility, voting procedures, layout of the polling stations, the referendum questions and the handling of the referendum debates were seen as negative aspects.
"The Central Election Commission called for 10 public TV debates, which were virtually hijacked by talk-show hosts and other media personalities. It would have been better to have organized the debates along journalistic principles instead," the study said.
The study also criticized the Referendum Law for excluding budget issues, taxation, investment, salaries and personal matters as topics for referendums.
"The exclusion of almost all financial matters means that one of the issues most important to people is excluded from popular decision-making," the paper said.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS