Four of the five people executed on March 4 did not have lawyers at their final trials, the trials that sent them to death row.
The Ministry of Justice continues to brush off criticism by insisting that it is being “extremely cautious” concerning executions. I’d like to give five examples to the contrary, and I welcome the ministry to respond to my concerns:
(1) The first I’ve already mentioned above. Four of those whose lives ended on March 4 did not have a lawyer or public defender at their Supreme Court trials. This is because Article 388 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) doesn’t guarantee the right to legal counsel at the Supreme Court. It used to be the same way for civil cases, but the legislature got around to fixing that. Unfortunately, it hasn’t gotten around to fixing the same problem for criminal cases.
(2) Under Ministry of Justice regulations, the ministry may not execute an inmate if his or her process of seeking judicial remedy is ongoing. When the Ministry put four people to death last year, the inmates in question had been granted a May 3 deadline to file for judicial review at the Constitutional Court. They were executed on April 30. Of these four, one of them had already mailed the necessary paperwork and his completed application arrived at the Judicial Yuan after his execution — a haunting rebuttal of the ministry’s professed “caution.”
(3) President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) apologized last month to the family of Chiang Kuo-ching (江國慶) for his execution in 1997, which was apparently wrongful. If you think that Chiang’s case was a one-time exception, consider the following:
The Hsichih Trio spent years on death row before their case was reopened. So did Hsu Tzu-chiang (徐自強), who is still in detention while his case continues. Chiou Ho-shun (邱和順) has been sentenced to death at retrial after retrial. Lu Cheng (盧正) was executed in 2000. What do these cases have in common? They all suffer from an apparent lack of evidence. It is now believed that Lu’s execution was wrongful, too. Expect another government apology in a few more years.
Are there more cases like this? Possibly. I’m less inclined to believe that the few cases that have been reopened were reopened because “the system works,” and more inclined to believe it has to do with the persistence of lawyers and the pressure of public scrutiny.
(4) Taiwan does not have procedures in place to allow death row inmates to apply for a commutation or pardon. The minister has the power to stop executions until this problem is fixed. Moreover, since Taiwan incorporated the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights into domestic law in 2009, the -government is in fact obligated to wait until the procedures are in place.
If the importance of the right to seek a commutation is unclear, consider the following case cited in author Chang Chuan-fen’s (張娟芬) book Shalu de Jiannan (殺戮的艱難, “The Difficulties of the Slaughter”). Chang cites a sentence in which the judges condemned the defendant to death even though they felt his crime only warranted life in prison. They raised the penalty to one that they explicitly said he did not deserve for the reason that they wanted to ensure he would not receive parole one day. A commutations process would give defendants a channel to challenge dubious reasoning by judges.
(5) Prisoners and their lawyers are not informed ahead of executions. This is arguably inhuman. Ignoring that for the moment, in terms of legal safeguards and “caution,” it is reckless. Why? For one example, see point two above.
I’ve seen three main arguments from those who pushed to resume executions in Taiwan.
The first is that it is a horrible and unforgivable crime when someone murders an innocent person. I fully agree. It is even more horrendous when the state does it. Are we satisfied with an apology from the president when this happens?
The second argument is that executions are legal and therefore not wrong. By the same reasoning we can say: It’s legal not to have a lawyer during your Supreme Court appeal, so clearly there’s no problem. This reasoning would convince few people.
The third argument is aimed at the minister of justice and says that the minister does not have the right to obstruct executions. By law, executions may not proceed until the minister has reviewed and approved them. The minister then signs an execution order. The whole point of this is to have one more safeguard, in case there are serious concerns that speak against carrying out the execution. The idea that the minister is obligated to sign on the dotted line is nonsense.
Human rights groups believe all executions are wrong. Whether you hold the same view, we can probably all agree that a single wrongful killing in the public’s name is a sin we cannot bear. Taiwan had a moratorium on executions for four years. During that time, none of the flaws that I’ve mentioned above were resolved. Bring back the moratorium.
As a final thought: Of the three developed democracies in the world that still carry out executions today, Taiwan is the only place where four people who didn’t have lawyers through to the very end of their court process could be put to death. Does that sound like a responsible and thoroughly cautious system to you? Would you trust it with your life?
Celia Llopis-Jepsen was formerly China coordinator at Amnesty International Sweden and is a former Taipei Times copy editor.
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