Executive Yuan approves referendum law overhaul

This article was published by the Macroview Weekly on July 3, 2005. It reports that the Executive Yuan in Taiwan recently approved a package of revisions to the Referendum Law. If passed by the Legislative Yuan, these revisions would lower the thresholds for citizen initiatives and the passage of referendums, providing that these referendums do not impinge on the ROC Constitution or the definition of the national territory.

In November 2003, the Legislative Yuan approved the Referendum Law. However, the law was criticized as a "birdcage" law that aimed more to prevent the proposal and passage of a referendum than realizing the right of referendum.

Proposed revisions to the Referendum Law include one that would lower the number of citizen signatures needed to launch an initiative petition from over 0.5 percent of the electorate in the previous presidential election to over 0.03 percent.

Another revision would lower the number of citizen signatures required to mandate a citizen-initiated referendum from the existing five percent of the electorate in the previous presidential election to at least 1.5 percent.

Finally, according to the proposed revisions, the existing requirement for approval by at least 50 percent of eligible voters for passage would be retained only for referendums for the ratification of draft Constitutional amendments or changes in the national territory definition proposed by the three-fourths majority of the Legislative. This means that if these revisions were passed, future referendums on non-Constitutional issues would be considered approved if votes in favor exceeded votes against and if the number of votes in favor amounted to at least 25 percent of the total electorate.

For more information about the proposed revisions, please check out this article.