Cabinet to request legislative revote on Constitutional Court bill

Taipei, Jan. 2 (CNA) The Cabinet said Thursday that it will submit an official request to the Legislature for a new vote on law amendments that were passed by opposition lawmakers on Dec. 20 to raise the threshold for adjudication by the Constitutional Court.

Pending approval by the president, the Cabinet's revote request will be sent to the Legislature in the hope of quashing the amendments.

Citing Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said the amendments would set "unreasonable thresholds" that would hamper the Constitutional Court's operations.

They would also affect people's rights to seek remedies and resolve constitutional disputes and would jeopardize constitutional order, Lee added.

Meanwhile, Lee said the Cabinet had not received any official notice of two other sets of amendments that were also approved by lawmakers of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People's Party (TPP) on Dec. 20.

Those amendments would tighten the requirements for petitions used to initiate a recall of an elected official and reallocate the central government's revenues to local governments -- regulations that the Cabinet has said it would seek to have rejected.