A few days ago, Minister of Justice Morley Shih (
China's system keeps prisoners who've been sentenced to death in jail for two years to give them a chance to repent. Those who do have their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
Adopting this system, however, would be taking a step backward, instead of moving along the correct path toward eventually abolishing the death penalty.
China delays the execution of death sentences, but the death penalty remains in place. In other words, courts still have absolute power to deliver final judgment. This would not be the case if capital punishment was replaced by a full-fledged moratorium.
Delaying the execution of a death sentence does not cut down on abuse of capital punishment, nor will it reduce criticism from the outside world.
The ministry's plan to introduce China's system for commuting death sentences to life imprisonment without actually abolishing capital punishment will not stop courts from issuing the death penalty, nor does it move the nation closer to abolishing the death penalty.
Even if the ministry is determined to delay the execution of every death sentence, we feel that retaining the possibility of executing a death sentence goes against the global trend toward abolishing capital punishment.
If getting rid of the death penalty cannot be achieved in one fell swoop, a full-fledged moratorium should be implemented. That is the right step toward gradually eliminating it.
Statistics from the human-rights group Amnesty International show that by the end of last year, 86 nations had abolished the death penalty, 11 nations have abolished the death penalty in times of peace and 25 nations have stopped performing executions. In total, 122 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, while 74 nations retain and use the death penalty.
In many countries that have done away with the death penalty, abolition was preceded by a period in which use of the death penalty was halted in order to build a public consensus and come up with appropriate supporting measures. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that instituting the death penalty has an impact on social order. Comparisons between US states where the death penalty has been abolished and states that have retained it show no clear cause-and-effect relationship between social order and the existence of capital punishment.
It is very rare for a nation that has stopped performing executions to not go further and abolish the death penalty. Therefore, Amnesty International usually categorizes such nations as having abolished the death penalty in practice.
For example, Hong Kong is one of the few Chinese societies in the world without capital punishment -- Macau is another -- although it took 27 years from the time it stopped performing executions in 1966 until the death penalty was formally repealed in 1993.
Another example is Russia: Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin signed a decree stopping the use of the death penalty in 1996, and his successor, President Vladimir Putin, has continued the policy. After a decade without executions, Russia's legislative body may this year adopt Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the abolition of the death penalty in times of peace.
Let's return the focus to Taiwan: If the ministry believes that it does not have sufficient administrative power to end executions, it should seek help from President Chen Shui-bian (
Furthermore, if the government recognizes that protecting human rights is a universally valid moral imperative, then abolishing the death penalty should come without any preconditions.
Therefore, repentance should be a condition for parole, not a condition for commuting a death sentence. This is one of the reasons why -- apart from China -- delayed death sentences are not used by any nation wanting to abolish the death penalty.
Ending the death penalty in Taiwan is now seen as something that is easier said than done, and the ministry often evades the issue using public opposition as a pretext.
In fact, in most democracies, including those that have abolished capital punishment, a majority of the public is against removing the death penalty.
Countries that have abolished it have done so for historical reasons -- for example Germany -- or due to pressure from the international community as a result of regional integration -- as in the democratizing countries in Eastern Europe -- but many more countries have done so because of the values of their political elite, for example Western European nations, Canada and many countries in South America.
It is, however, very rare that a country abolishes the death penalty based on public opinion. Just as is the case with many human rights guarantees for disadvantaged groups, eliminating the death penalty may go against the wishes of the majority. Instead, political leaders, including lawmakers, must safeguard the needs of a minority.
Chen and the justice ministry have promised to abolish the death penalty several times as a part of the government's human rights policy. As recently as last September -- when the president received delegates from the International League for Human Rights -- Chen even said that he hoped to reach the goal of zero executions "as soon as possible."
But if Chen really wants to live up to his claim to make Taiwan into a human-rights oriented nation, he must halt the adoption of an ambiguous system to delay death sentences and instead put an end to the execution of death sentences.
Wu Chih-kuang is an associate professor in the School of Law at Fu Jen Catholic University and a vice convener of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.
Translated by Lin Ya-ti
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers