A Comparative Study of the Nationwide System of Referendum in Taiwan and in Switzerland

• Main Authors: Wen-Min Chiao, 喬玟敏
• Other Authors: Yong-Guang Ge
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/65984196289918947328

碩士 === 臺灣大學 === 國家發展研究所 === 95 === The Referendum law in Taiwan was officially enacted on November 27, 2003, and the first nationwide referendum was later held along with the presidential election in the next year, on March 20, 2004.However, both the law mentioned above and the only nationwide referendum practice so far have been criticized by either politicians in varied parties as well as luminaries. Therefore, since 2004, there have been seven different kinds of amendments to the currently-implemented referendum law presented in the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan, waiting to be ratified and adopted. Nevertheless, due to discrepancies as regards the statutes regulating referendum among parties in the congress, no consensus has been reached. In contrast to the contentions stemming from the four-year period since the passage of the present referendum law, the century-old experience of practicing direct democracy has created Switzerland ,a so-called paradigm of a successful model in referendum practice, to be the country where referendum has been adopted most frequently in the world; thus, an overview of the referendum in Switzerland , both the statutes related and the experiences in the past included, is introduced and compared with both the current referendum law and the seven versions of amendments in Taiwan in this master thesis, as a practical reference to either the modification or design of the regulations related to the nationwide referendum in Taiwan. Based on such approaches of analyses on assorted academic materials, interpretations of laws, and systematic comparison, it has been discovered in the research that the close association between supporters of referendum and those of independence of Taiwan in history is the main reason why the referendum practiced in Taiwan is not as stable as that performed in Switzerland. Regardless of the true function of referendum, polarized points of view as concerns whether such voting should be allowed have been posed since whether leaders of Taiwan should declare independence , a past synonym to referendum here, has been constantly argued. In contrast, both the government and the citizens in Switzerland have consistently held optimistic and supportive attitude towards the effect and necessity of direct democracy, which has directly led to the general acceptance of results gained from referendum. In view of the inherent difference in attitude above, suggestions as follows are made in the research：In order to build a stable system of referendum, equilibrium in opinions concerning referendum between competitive parties in the congress should be attained first. However, the only way to reach consistency with reference to the issue of referendum in Taiwan is to grant solely legal permission to the citizens here to file proposals for referendum by refusing institutes or other government officials other than people to propose the request of referendum. To manifest the effectiveness of direct democracy, in the meantime, a stricter threshold of the passage or adoption of a referendum result accompanied by an easier application of a referendum proposal ought to be assumed in the future amendment of the current referendum law in Taiwan. Moreover, like Switzerland, the referendum regulated in Taiwan should exclude the application of “policy vote”of any kind since it is not binding at all, and the only way to genuinely demonstrate the influence of direct democracy in the mainstream of indirect democracy is to make the results of all kind of referendum binding.