No Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday attended a public hearing of the Legislative Yuan’s Constitutional Amendment Committee.
The legislative caucuses in 2020 established the committee amid calls to amend the Constitution, appointing 39 members based on a party’s proportion of seats in the legislature.
DPP Legislator Chou Chun-mi (周春米) convened yesterday’s session, which included DPP members, New Power Party legislators Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) and Claire Wang (王婉瑜), and Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Jang Chyi-lu (張其祿).
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The KMT members of the committee on Wednesday said they would not participate, saying that the DPP had last week contravened legislative procedure in choosing Chou as convener in the opening session before KMT legislators had arrived.
“The KMT will not participate because the DPP is faking the process to deceive the public... The agenda and procedures were set by the DPP,” KMT Legislator William Tseng (曾銘宗) said on Wednesday, adding that the DPP “must bear total responsibility for the failure of the constitutional amendment process.”
DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) yesterday said that the KMT was sabotaging the process by boycotting it, adding that the “KMT’s goal is to ruin the constitutional amendment process.”
At yesterday’s meeting, Academia Sinica law researcher Su Yen-tu (蘇彥圖) told the committee that there is general agreement in Taiwan for “granting civil rights to adults at the age of 18, and also to give them voting rights.”
“Therefore the issue should be a priority for the committee, and does not need to go through any hard bargaining process,” he said.
Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy head Alvin Chang (張育萌) said that Taiwan needs to catch up on rights for young people, as “Japan, South Korea and Malaysia have amended their constitutions to grant voting and civil rights to people at 18 years old.”
Taiwan Forever Association chairman Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) said that it had been more than 15 years since a committee was convened to amend the Constitution, “while our nation’s framework and government have encountered many challenges and difficulties.”
“The threshold for amending the Constitution must be dealt with by this committee, as it is too high, requiring three-quarters of legislators to vote in approval,” he said. “This is among the highest threshold requirements, and should be lowered.”
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
STAY VIGILANT: When experiencing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as dizziness or fatigue, near a water heater, open windows and doors to ventilate the area Rooftop flue water heaters should only be installed outdoors or in properly ventilated areas to prevent toxic gas from building up, the Yilan County Fire Department said, after a man in Taipei died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday last week. The 39-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳), an assistant professor at Providence University in Taichung, was at his Taipei home for the holidays when the incident occurred, news reports said. He was taking a shower in the bathroom of a rooftop addition when carbon monoxide — a poisonous byproduct of combustion — leaked from a water heater installed in a poorly ventilated
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