Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) yesterday said an 11-month hiatus in executions could end as early as this month, a move certain to re-ignite debate over the death penalty.
“There is a chance [a death sentence could be carried out] this month,” Tseng said during a hearing at the legislature after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) expressed concern over the execution process.
Tseng said the ministry had taken a cautious approach to carrying out the death penalty and would only execute a death row inmate if he or she had exhausted all legal avenues for an appeal, such as filing an extraordinary appeal, a retrial and asking for a constitutional interpretation.
Wu said that if inmates insisted on dying and were not granted their request, that would also constitute a form of torture infringing their human rights.
The death penalty was last carried out on April 30 last year, when four inmates were executed, the first since 2005.
The moratorium on executions drew attention early last year when then-minister of justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰), a death penalty opponent, insisted on stays of execution. Wang resigned on March 11 following an outcry from victims of violent crime and their families.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said yesterday they opposed the death penalty, pointing to the execution in 1997 of air force private Chiang Kuo-ching (江國慶), who was later exonerated of the crime for which he was executed by DNA and forensic evidence.
Ministry of National Defense officials apologized in January for executing Chiang for the sexual abuse and murder of a five-year-old girl in 1996.
“In a case like this, by the time the government found out that it had done something wrong — it was already too late,” DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. “This is why we need a national dialogue before any more executions are carried out.”
Kuan said that the death penalty failed to get to the root of the problem and had a negative effect on Taiwan’s image.
“They [the government] have a right to do so of course, as we have not revised our laws yet, but is it necessary? [President] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), a Harvard law graduate, should be as aware of this as anyone,” Kuan said.
The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty said death row convicts should not be executed until a review on the death penalty has been completed.
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