The Appendectomy Project yesterday said it plans to hold 88 seminars across the nation — starting on Thursday — to promote public awareness of citizens’ rights to recall elected officials.
Invitations are to be sent to legislative candidates across party lines asking for their signatures to support an amendment to the law that would see the threshold for an official to be recalled lowered, it said.
The group said that Article 17 of the Constitution — which states that the public has the rights of election, recall, and initiating referendums — supported their proposal, but added that exercising the right of recall is more difficult than is commonly believed.
The efforts of the project and the Constitution 133 Alliance to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) and Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) stalled after the petition failed to reach the threshold to pass the second stage, the group pointed out.
The vote to recall Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) proceeded to the third stage, but then failed due to a low voter turnout of 24.98 percent, the group said.
Regulations on recalls require that 2 percent of an official’s constituency sign a petition for a recall at the first stage and 13 percent at the second stage. The final vote requires at least half of the electorate in a constituency cast their ballots, and at least half of those polled agree to the official’s recall.
The Appendectomy Project, along with Taiwan March and the People Rule Foundation, held a rally on Oct. 3 calling for inept legislators to be swept from office and pledging to renew their efforts to amend the law.
“We plan to ask legislators and legislative candidates to support amendments dropping the required threshold in the first stage from 2 percent to 1 percent and from 13 percent in the second stage to 10 percent,” group member Lin Tsu-yi (林祖儀) said. “We also intend for the third stage voting to be changed to a simple majority vote.”
Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior’s planned amendments to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) — which might include an abolition of the rule that “recall votes cannot be spread via propaganda” — have become gridlocked.
The current regulations — that became a focus during Tsai’s recall vote in February — are outdated and should be changed, according to the majority of experts the ministry approached on the issue.
However, what the voter threshold to initiate a recall vote should be has elicited a variety of responses from analysts, with some saying it should be pegged to one third of the total legal voters of a constituency, while others say that half is correct, Civil Affairs Department Deputy Director Luo Rui-ching (羅瑞卿) said.
“We intend to bring to the Legislative Yuan a more complete version of our proposed changes,” she said.
However, Lin criticized the ministry for for what she said was a disappointing attempt to intentionally delay the amendments.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS