Incoming Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) said yesterday the ministry would consider the possibility of abolishing capital punishment, but that she must respect the law when dealing with the 29 individuals who remain on death row.
The last execution was more than two years ago.
“It is very, very difficult, but I will face it and try not to avoid it,” Wang told a press conference on her first day as minister.
“We must adhere to the law and deal with the individuals on death row,” she said.
But Wang said she had no idea how to address the matter.
The Democratic Progressive Party government said in 2000 it would abolish the death penalty, but the ministry said it was not able to do so because a majority of Taiwanese still believe that capital punishment is the most effective means of deterring serious crime.
As a former attorney and social activist, Wang said the abolishment of capital punishment was increasingly being pursued globally. She said, however, that close to 80 percent of people opposed abolishing the death penalty.
The opposition dropped to about 40 percent, however, if additional measures — such as setting sentence limits and a threshold on parole for life imprisonment — were put on the table.
She said the ministry would study the complementary measures along with the possibility of abolishing the death penalty.
Wang said that maintaining the death penalty also had repercussions for the nation’s image abroad.
Ministry figures showed that the number of executions has decreased for years. Thirty-two prisoners were executed in 1998, a number that shrank to 10 in 2001 and three each year between 2004 and 2006.
In related news, the Chinese-language Liberty Times, (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported yesterday that Prosecutor Wu Wen-chung (吳文忠) of the Supreme Court Prosecutors Office’s Special Investigation Panel had said on Tuesday that “[former president] Chen Shui-bian [陳水扁] should be executed” while chatting with reporters after a press conference.
Wang said yesterday it was very inappropriate for Wu to make such a remark and asked the Supreme Prosecutors Office to investigate the matter.
Wu denied the report yesterday, saying he was joking.
“I said the individuals on death row should be executed, not Chen,” he said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
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