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TSU see red as ECFA referendum
rejected
By Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporter
Taiwan Solidarity Union members
hold signs at a protest outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei yesterday,
demanding that the Referendum Review Committee respect a verdict by the Supreme
Administrative Court and put the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA)
to a referendum.
Photo: CNA
The Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review
Committee yesterday again turned down a referendum proposal by the Taiwan
Solidarity Union (TSU) on the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework
Agreement (ECFA), despite a ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court last
month that said the committee must review the application.
“With a nine-to-three vote, the committee has decided to reject the TSU’s
proposed referendum on whether the government should sign the ECFA with China
based on two major reasons,” committee chairman Chao Yung-mau (趙永茂) said after
he walked out of a four-hour meeting.
“The first reason is that the question asked in the referendum and the contents
of the petition for the referendum are contradictory, and second, the Referendum
Act (公民投票法) stipulates that issues related to tariffs and taxation cannot be
decided in a referendum,” he said.
He said the TSU’s referendum proposal asks whether voters agree that the
government should have signed the ECFA with China, while in the petition, the
TSU asked voters whether they agree with the actual contents of the ECFA that
the government signed with China in 2010.
Asked whether the committee has violated the ruling of the Supreme
Administrative Court by rejecting the referendum proposal, Chao said he did not
think so.
“The Supreme Administrative Court wanted us to do two things — to hold public
hearings on the referendum and to review the proposal. We did both,” Chao said.
Two years ago, when the Referendum Review Committee turned down the TSU’s
referendum proposal on the same issue, the party filed a lawsuit against the
committee, questioning the legitimacy of its decision.
Last month, the Supreme Administrative Court handed down its final ruling, which
required the committee to make up for some missed steps.
Before the meeting started at 9:30am, about 30 to 40 supporters of the TSU, led
by TSU Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉), rallied outside the meeting venue,
urging the committee to pass the referendum proposal.
The Referendum Act stipulates that a proposal, after completing the first stage
by collecting the signatures of 0.5 percent of the number of people eligible to
vote in the previous presidential election, must obtain the approval of the
Referendum Review Committee before it can proceed to the next stage, collecting
signatures from 5 percent of those eligible to vote. It must then pass a second
review before making it to polling stations.
TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) yesterday said his party would file an
administrative suit against the commission over its rejection of the party’s
proposed referendum on the ECFA.
Huang said the reasons the commission had given for rejecting it had already
been ruled by the Supreme Administrative Court as illegal, adding that the
contents of the ECFA include commerce and the tertiary sector, which have no
connection with issues about domestic tariffs.
“The commission’s reasons simply show that it is rejecting the TSU referendum
for the sake of it,” Huang said.
“We will ask the Control Yuan to move for the impeachment of the nine members of
the commission who voted to deny the party’s referendum proposal,” Huang said,
adding that the party would pursue administrative action against the commission
as soon as possible.
Additional reporting by CNA
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