A state’s civil servants being asked to take the lives of others is something that should be seriously thought about in a democratic, highly developed and civilized country such as Taiwan, Vivien Stern, a member of the British House of Lords, told reporters in Taipei yesterday.
“At least, some thought should be given to what is being asked of a state’s [civil] servants to take another human being to where [that person] is going to be killed,” Stern said.
Stern, along with Richard Faulkner, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary British-Taiwan Group, are on a three-day visit to Taipei.
They have been meeting with local politicians and representatives of non-governmental organizations to discuss the death penalty issue. They also toured the Taipei Detention Center, including the execution chamber, and met with members of its staff.
Taipei Detention Center employees said the most difficult part of their jobs was to take part in executions, Stern said.
“We all agree it’s extremely difficult,” she said.
In the UK, where no execution has been carried out since 1965, prison staff had been among the activists leading the movement for the abolishment of the death penalty and a number of them said that they would leave their jobs if a bill to end the death penalty was not passed by the British parliament, Stern said.
Britain eventually abolished the death penalty in 1969 at a time when there was a strong belief in social justice politically, and two miscarriages of justice created a climate favorable for abolition, she said.
Even though the drive to abolish the death penalty in the UK came from the parliament, not from the public, nowadays, only a minority of the British public, 48 percent, are in favor of retaining capital punishment, Stern said, citing the results of a survey conducted about three months ago.
She said she understood that in Taiwan, public opinion polls that show about 80 percent of the public favor retaining the death penalty are cited as a rationale for making abolishing capital punishment a long-term objective of the government, but “those polls don’t go very deep.”
It is very important for Taiwan to abolish the death penalty because Taiwan is a very important democracy that has a clear commitment to human rights, she said.
“If the use of the death penalty can be reduced and eventually abolished, it would be a great encouragement to all the countries that support and value Taiwan and would be a very useful model for other countries in the region,” Stern said.
Taiwan is on the road towards abolition, Stern said.
“Change is slow, but coming. What is needed is debate. Discussion about its implications from all experts would open up people’s thinking and public opinion would become more informed,” she said.
Stern is a longtime proponent of judicial and penal reform in the UK, having served as director of the NACRO criminal justice charity and secretary-general of Penal Reform International for many years.
She has also written several books, including Bricks of Shame: Britain’s Prisons, Creating Criminals: Prisons and People in a Market Society and A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World, and is a well-known speaker on prison reform.
She became a life peer, the Baroness Stern of Vauxhall, in 1999.
Additional reporting by Diane Baker
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