Taipei Times
Date: Jul 12, 2016
By: Tseng Wei-chen / Staff reporter

The legislature is set to pass amendments to the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公務人員選舉罷免法) that would lower the recall thresholds and to the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) that would do away with the need to apply for a permit or to inform authorities before staging demonstrations.

The two bills, as well as a proposed amendment to the Referendum Act (公民投票法), were all sent for review by the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee before President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office on May 20, but committee coconvener Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that due to the opposition of civic groups to the proposed Referendum Act revisions, the other two amendments would be dealt with first.

Following the recommendations of the review committee and cross-caucus negotiations, the amendments would see the recall threshold for supporters of a recall lowered from 2 percent to 1 percent of total voters in an electoral district, while the signature threshold would be lowered from 13 percent to 10 percent.

The time period for the collection of signatures for recalls for all levels of elected representative would be doubled; the threshold for a recall to be considered successful would be changed from requiring “double halves” — the turnout must be more than half of the total number of voters in the electoral district and the number voting for a recall has to exceed half of the valid ballots — to a turnout of a quarter of the number of voters and a simple majority, while the clause that forbids campaigning for a recall would be scrapped.     [FULL  STORY]