文章內容: A number of academics yesterday called on the government not to block people’s wish to express their opinions through a referendum on the government’s plan to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China.

The academics made the call in Taipei while presenting a new book titled Review of Significant International Referendum Cases.

National Chengchi University history professor Chen Wen-hsien (陳文賢), the main editor of the book, said the book gathered more than 10 articles reviewing significant referendum cases that had been held around the world, all of which he said highlighted the referendum as an important process in democracies.

Referendums allow members of the public to voice their opinions directly, gathering public consensus, he said, adding that a referendum’s result functions as an announcement a country makes to the international community.

As an example, Chen said Finland’s Constitution and laws do not require that the country seek approval by referendum before joining international organizations. Still, Finland in 1994 held a national referendum on whether to join of the EU because its government saw the move concerned Finland’s future, and the public had the right to decide their future.

Citing another example, Chen said Switzerland held two referendums, in 1986 and 2003, to decide whether to join the UN. The proposal was rejected in the first, but it received 54.6 percent approval and passed the second time.

At the same occasion yesterday, Taiwan New Century Foundation chairman Chen Lung-chu (陳隆志) said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government and the public should learn from the book about referendum practices in democracies.

The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) on April 23 announced it had completed the first phase of a referendum procedure that would ask voters whether they supported an ECFA with China.

Of the nearly 200,000 signatures the party has already collected, 110,000 petition forms were delivered to the Central Election Commission (CEC) for review.

The Referendum Act (公民投票法) stipulates that for the first phase of a referendum drive, organizers must collect information from at least 0.5 percent of eligible voters, meaning that of the 110,000 forms, 86,000 would have to be valid to initiate a referendum.

Officials from the CEC said that they have scheduled a committee meeting for Tuesday to review the referendum petition, four days before it must either halt the referendum pending additional signatures or send it to the Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee for further examination.

TSU Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉) yesterday called on the government…