The legislature has recently rejected all seven nominees for the Constitutional Court, including National Taiwan University professor of law Chang Wen-chin (張文貞) and Parliament Observation Culture and Education Foundation (國會觀察文教基金會) chair Yao Li-ming (姚立明) for president and vice president of the Judicial Yuan respectively.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said the party made the decision based on the belief that the death penalty should not be abolished. Therefore, all seven nominees are ineligible due to their stance on the issue.
According to a Constitutional Court ruling last year, the death sentence is prohibited for defendants who committed crimes not resulting directly and intentionally in death, as well as for “defendants with mental conditions, even if their mental conditions did not influence their offense in the cases in question.”
The Supreme Court affirmed that in its rulings on Tang Ching-hua (湯景華), who was found guilty of manslaughter in 2021, Chen Kun-ming (陳昆明), who killed two people in 2003, and Shen Wen-pin (沈文賓), who was put on death row on March 2020. The last death row inmate executed was Weng Jen-hsien (翁仁賢), who was convicted of killing six people.
The only change the Constitutional Court made is that the imposition of the death penalty should require a unanimous verdict. Even before the ruling, there had hardly been any executions or anyone sentenced to death in the past four years.
The opposition lawmakers have turned a blind eye to some pressing issues regarding amendments to the Criminal Code.
On Dec. 9 last year, a man in his 70s killed his wife who had a rare disease. It was said that he was exhausted after taking care of her for a long time. He turned himself in and was detained on a murder charge. That was the eighth time that a carer had committed murder last year.
More than half of the carers who had murdered the people they were caring for had been taking care of the victims for more than 10 years, and nearly half of them committed suicide afterwards, the Academy for the Judiciary said. Most did not have criminal records. They killed the victims mainly due to unbearable pressure and a wish to end the victims’ suffering.
The Ministry of Justice in March 2023 proposed that defendants sentenced to three years in prison, instead of two years, could get a suspension. The ministry also proposed amendments to the criteria for deferring prosecution. Another proposal was to prescribe a lower penalty for carers involved in murder cases in accordance with articles 273 and 274 of the Criminal Code.
Article 273 states that any person who kills someone due to righteous indignation would be sentenced to imprisonment of up to seven years. Article 274 states that a mother who causes the death of her child under unavoidable circumstances would be sentenced to between six months and five years.
It is regrettable that the ministry’s proposal was not followed by further actions by the government.
President William Lai (賴清德) would have to nominate new candidates. I hope the opposition would not again get entangled in meaningless disputes over the death penalty. Lawmakers should focus on the nominees’ stances on issues surrounding the criminal liability of carers involved in murder cases and active euthanasia.
Whether the nominees agree that we should decriminalize abetting suicide, referencing Germany’s criminal code, and how to alleviate the judiciary’s burden regarding the rapid increase in the number of cases, there are more pressing issues than the controversies surrounding the death penalty.
Chao Hsuey-wen is an assistant professor.
Translated by Fion Khan
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