Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers said on Sunday that they opposed a Ministry of Justice plan to phase out the death penalty, claiming it would result in an increase in the crime rate.
The remarks came one day after the ministry said it planned to gradually achieve its goal by conducting extensive research and discussion and proposing complementary measures to win the support of the public.
However, KMT Legislator Wu Ching-chih (吳清池) said it was not the right time to push for elimination of the death penalty.
He said that social order was not good and that the public did not have sufficient understanding of law and order.
Abolishing the death penalty would not be conducive to social order and might encourage major crime rings to engage in bigger crimes, he said.
The death penalty serves as a deterrent to those who intend to engage in illicit activities, said Wu, adding that if the ministry proposed a draft bill to abolish the death penalty in the next legislative session, he would oppose it.
Chu Fong-chi (朱鳳芝), another KMT lawmaker, agreed, adding that South Africa now has no capital punishment, which she claimed was the reason its social order was deteriorating.
She suggested keeping the death penalty in place, but urged local judges to exert more caution when handing down death sentences.
KMT Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said the ministry should respect public opinion, since there was no consensus on the abolishment.
A day earlier, the ministry said in a statement that capital punishment uses national power to deprive a criminal’s right to life so that the criminal is isolated from the rest of society permanently.
Such methods are cruel and fail to meet the requirement that punishment should also serve rehabilitation purposes, the ministry said.
Many democratic, advanced nations have therefore abolished the death penalty with or without conditions, it said.
Up to 137 countries have abandoned capital punishment both legally and in reality, while 60 countries still maintain it, Amnesty International data released in May showed.
Only 24 of these 60 countries still carry out death sentences, the ministry said, adding that the UN General Assembly also endorsed a resolution on Dec. 18 calling for a halt to executions.
Although abolishing the death penalty is a world trend, up to 80 percent of the people in Taiwan oppose the idea, according to the results of a ministry poll released in February.
However, the percentage of support dropped sharply to 43 percent when the ministry asked the respondents if they would agree to the death penalty being replaced by life imprisonment with no parole.
Under such a premise, another 56 percent supported the abolishment of capital punishment, the ministry said.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS