The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) this morning requested an injunction and constitutional interpretation of the amendments to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) which took effect today after President William Lai’s (賴清德) promulgation on Tuesday.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said it is unconstitutional to require people initiating or signing a recall petition to provide photocopies of their identification cards when submitting petition signatures, which the amendments make compulsory, and that people could risk being put in jail if they were not careful enough when exercising basic human rights.
The new law includes punitive measures, stipulating that anyone found guilty of using someone else’s identification or forging an ID for a recall petition could face up to five years in prison or a fine of up to NT$1 million (US$30,536).
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Article 17 of the Constitution entitles people with “the right of election, recall, initiative and referendum,” while Article 22 guarantees people “all the freedoms and rights that are not detrimental to social order or public welfare,” Ker said.
He said their request is to seek remedy and maintain constitutional order as “no political parties or single person can stand on the opposite side of the Constitution.”
However, the newly amended Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法) mandates that a minimum of 10 grand justices must hear and rule on a case, and that a ruling that something is unconstitutional must be supported by at least nine justices.
Currently, the Constitutional Court has only eight grand justices, as the Legislative Yuan has declined to approve a new slate of seven nominees put forward by Lai in December last year.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) today said it would be illegal as there are not enough grand justices to make a constitutional interpretation ruling.
The amendments to the act, proposed by KMT legislators and backed by their counterparts from the Taiwan People’s Party, were passed by a majority of lawmakers on Dec. 20 last year.
The Cabinet on Jan. 24 requested the legislature to reconsider the amendments based on the provisions of the Constitution, saying it would be difficult to execute.
However, the Legislative Yuan on Tuesday last week voted to uphold the new legislation and sent it to the Presidential Office a day later, paving the way for its promulgation by Lai on Tuesday.
The Ministry of the Interior said it deeply regrets that it would be almost impossible to initiate a recall petition in the future as the newly amended law would raise the threshold and restrict the public’s right to recall elected politicians without obtaining public consensus.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
RSS