Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) yesterday urged political parties and the public to support constitutional reform after the party’s Central Standing Committee the previous day unveiled its platform of constitutional amendments.
The DPP’s agenda on constitutional reform includes expanding the political rights of young people, abolishing the Control Yuan and Examination Yuan in favor of a three-branch system, and making the Constitution easier to change.
“The ruling and opposition parties must put aside their disagreements and embrace a precious moment for reforming the Constitution,” Fan told a news conference she cohosted with advocacy groups at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
The standard for passing and ratifying constitutional changes is so high that it renders discussion of constitutional reform moot, she said, calling on the public to support a proposal to lower the threshold.
The version she supports adjusts the threshold an appropriate amount, and adds safeguards to Taiwan’s democratic form of government and human rights, she said.
Fan urged people to back the addition of a “bill of rights” to the Constitution, although it did not obtain DPP backing.
Legislators have used the law to bind Taiwan to several international covenants, but the Constitution should be amended to strengthen the rights recognized by those covenants, she said, referring to covenants such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
The Constitution should enumerate labor rights, environmental rights and the right to housing, as well as assert the state’s duty to promote human rights and equality, she said.
The Constitution should explicitly protect children from physical and psychological abuse, she added.
The Taiwan Association for Human Rights regrets that the DPP did not include a bill of rights among its proposed constitutional reforms, said Liao Hsin-yi (廖欣宜), who is in charge of international affairs for the association.
“The unreachable standard for constitutional amendments is the reason the public is apathetic about such reform,” she said.
Litigants must be able to assert their constitutional rights against the apparatuses of the state and a national human rights commission should be created outside the three branches of government preferred by the DPP, Covenants Watch convener Huang Song-lih (黃嵩立) said.
The commission’s function would be to advise the government when its agencies are out of compliance with international covenants, he said.
Constitutional reform should include a bill of rights that emphasizes gender equality, and clearly applies gender equality to the equal treatment of various gender identities and sexual orientations, Awakening Foundation senior researcher Tseng Chao-yuan (曾昭媛) said.
Suffrage and the right to run for elected office should be extended to Taiwanese who are 18 years old, said Liu Chih-yang (劉志洋), deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare.
The alliance urged political parties not to forget about the political rights of young Taiwanese, a cause that they all would seemingly support, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
