Civic groups plan to push for “bottom-up” constitutional reforms and prepare constitutional amendment proposals for referendums by 2018, the Civic Alliance to Promote Constitutional Reform said yesterday.
The alliance, which was formed in 2014, told a news conference that its efforts would focus on two issues — lowering the voting age and reducing the threshold of the minimum percentage of votes a party must receive to be apportioned legislator-at-large seats.
According to the alliance, members of the public and legislators are to be jointly involved in the drafting of constitutional amendment proposals, which are to be submitted to popular referendum to coincide with the 2018 local elections for county commissioners and city mayors.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The drafting process is to be split into three stages: research, consultation and deliberation, the alliance said.
Hsu Wei-chun (徐偉群), a member of the alliance’s executive committee, said that its goals are to enlist the legislature in jump-starting constitutional reforms, to have members of the public and lawmakers work together in overcoming the stringent legal threshold for constitutional referendums, and to use action to improve the awareness of the nation as a “constitutional and political community.”
Taiwan Alliance for the Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare secretary-general Yeh Da-hua (葉大華) said the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) obstruction in the legislature in July last year defeated proposals to amend the minimum voting age and the percentage threshold in votes to elect legislators-at-large, despite a national consensus supporting such proposals.
As Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been elected as the next president, she now has a duty to carry through her campaign promises to support those constitutional amendments, Yeh added.
Lawmakers at the news conference said they would support the proposed constitutional amendments in the legislature.
DDP Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) said that as a constitutional amendment committee member present during the breakdown in negotiations last year, she blames the KMT and the “top-down” approach to amending the Constitution for the failure to ratify the two proposals.
A “bottom-up” strategy proposed by the alliance has a better chance of breaking the gridlock of political elites and their concerns for political self-interest by relying on deliberative democracy to open a path, Cheng said.
DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) said she considers the alliance’s plan “innovative,” adding that she would support it in the legislature, while New Power Party Legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal also pledged to support the proposed amendments.
DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said past efforts to introduce “top-down” constitutional reforms through the legislature did not produce the results the people wanted, adding that he supports the spirit and institutional framework of the alliance’s plan, adding that he believes there is also “room for discussion on its procedural matters.”
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS