ROC National Assembly Election, 2005 - Amendments

Amendments

The only authority of the National Assembly was to accept or reject amendments which were proposed almost unanimously by the Legislative Yuan in August 2004, one of which was to abolish the National Assembly.

The proposed amendments may be summarized as follows:

1. Reducing the number of members in the Legislative Yuan from 225 to 113;
2. Changing the term of office for Legislative Yuan members from 3 years to 4 years to synchronize the election cycle with the President of the Republic of China;
3. Changing the electoral system for the Legislative Yuan to first-past-the-post system with single member constituency, along with a separate party-list top-up (Additional Member System);
4. Abolishing the National Assembly in favour of referendums for the ratification of constitutional amendments and territorial changes (proposed by a three-fourths vote of the Legislative Yuan) in the future; and
5. Changing the impeachment procedure for the president and vice-president so they are dealt with by the Grand Justices.

Using referendums to ratify constitutional amendments has been portrayed by some as a step toward Taiwan independence. However, the requirement that such a referendum must first be approved by a three-fourths vote of the Legislative Yuan, and that at least 50% of the whole electorate had to vote for the change for the referendum to succeed considerably reducing the chance that these amendments would trigger a conflict with the People's Republic of China.

One question which was unresolved until after the elections was the threshold for passage of the amendments. The DPP and KMT had advocated a majority vote for passage, while the smaller parties advocated a three-fourths threshold. It wasn't until the week after the election that the Legislature agreed on the three-quarters voting threshold - when it was already clear that the parties which supported the amendments controlled more than 75% of the National Assembly. Also, the TSU has advocated voting on the amendments separately, which was impossible as the inter-party agreement for these amendments stipulated that they be adopted all or none.

The proposed system of electing Legislative Yuan members is unfavorable to smaller parties, but was originally supported by the two smaller parties in Taiwan for different reasons.