The Ministry of Justice on July 1 unveiled a mandatory preview of draft amendments to the Regulations for the Execution of the Death Penalty (執行死刑規則), which would remove articles governing the use of organs from executed convicts.
Although the use of organs from executed prisoners has been banned in Taiwan since the Human Organ Transplantation Act (人體器官移植條例) was amended in 2015, three articles in the regulations still contain rules that regulate the practice, the ministry said.
The articles state that an inmate awaiting capital punishment who wishes to donate their organs should sign a consent form and obtain approval from their spouse or a relative within three degrees of kinship; the execution should be carried out by a shot to the head in cases of prisoners who have consented to donate organs; and the body of an executed convict should be transferred to a hospital for organ removal surgery after they are determined to be dead.
Photo: Wu Cheng-fong, Taipei Times
Taiwan has not performed any organ transplantation from executed convicts in nine years, due to human rights and ethical concerns, the ministry said, citing as an example a controversy that erupted in 2011.
That year, five prisoners were executed and three of the bodies were taken to a hospital for organ transplant surgery shortly after execution, it said.
However, the incident caused an outcry from human rights groups, which said the organs might have been removed before the prisoners were legally brain dead, as the Brain Death Determination Procedure (腦死判定程序), issued in 1987 by the Ministry of Health and Welfare states that at least 16 hours of observation and two examinations are required before brain death can be declared.
Recipients of the organs could also develop stress disorder after finding that the organs came from executed prisoners, it added.
Another planned change to the regulations is a requirement for death row inmates to wear a hood during execution to make the job of the executioner less traumatic.
It is currently not compulsory for prisoners to wear a hood during executions, which are carried out by judicial police officers.
Being an executioner is an extremely stressful job that requires comprehensive training before and psychological consultation after an execution, said a ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
One of the major taboos of being an executioner is looking the person being executed in the eye, a judicial police officer responsible for executions said on condition of anonymity.
Amending the rules to require a prisoner to wear a hood would limit the chances of that happening, they added.
Another proposed amendment would require the ministry to consider other execution options to make executions more humane in accordance with international covenants on human rights.
Current regulations stipulate that capital punishment be carried out either by lethal injection or by shooting.
However, in practice, Taiwan has executed all of its death row inmates by shooting.
According to the rules, the person to be executed is injected with an anesthetic to render them unconscious before a judicial police officer fires a single shot from a pistol at the back of the prisoner’s heart.
If the prisoner has agreed to donate their organs, then the bullet is fired at the head.
Another proposed amendment would allow a prisoner who is about to be executed to leave a final message by audio or video recording, but it cannot be longer than 10 minutes.
The message is to be delivered to a designated family member or next of kin within 24 hours of the execution, according to the draft amendment.
Taiwan has 38 death row inmates, with the most recent execution conducted on April 1.
The ministry would hold discussions with experts and non-governmental organizations today before the amendments take effect on Wednesday.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS