A National Human Rights preliminary report scheduled to be released by the Presidential Office later this month should include a review of the Referendum Act (公民投票法), which deprives people of their rights, a number of academics said yesterday.

The act, enacted in 2003, has been dubbed “birdcage” legislation because of the unreasonably high threshold needed to launch a referendum drive.

The act stipulates that a referendum proposal, after completing a first stage whereby signatures from 0.5 percent of the number of eligible voters in the previous presidential election have been collected, must obtain approval from the Referendum Review Committee before it can proceed to the next stage, which involves collecting signatures from 5 percent of voters.