The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday said it is mulling street protests and plebiscites to remove limits on capital punishment imposed last week by the Constitutional Court.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the KMT was inciting populism and vowed to draft legislation to bolster life imprisonment sentencing without parole and help prevent wrongful convictions.
The death penalty is allowed, but applies only to exceptionally heinous cases that have been tried according to the strictest possible due process standards, the Constitutional Court said in a constitutional interpretation on Friday last week.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The court placed restrictions that made exercising capital punishment “virtually impossible” while ostensibly upholding the penalty, KMT Legislator Wu Tsung-hsien (吳宗憲), a former prosecutor, told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.
KMT lawmakers in the legislature and on the streets would fight to restore the “status quo” of the death penalty, Wu said, adding that they “do not rule out” proposing referendums to challenge the judgement.
People who are third parties to the tragedy of crime should not demand that the family members of people who have been murdered respect the rights of the perpetrator, he said.
The court’s restrictions on the death penalty shield perpetrators from justice and would contribute to social unrest, KMT Legislator Huang Chien-pin (黃建賓) said.
KMT Legislator Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said the Constitutional Court “showed hypocrisy” by neglecting the rights of people targeted by crime.
DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) later told a news conference that the KMT is “sowing populism and division for political gain.”
An average person would have understood the law enough to comply with a decision rendered by the nation’s highest court instead of making slanderous comments about its judges, she said.
The DDP caucus would amend laws to ensure constitutional standards are met in the justice system’s handling of cases and bring life imprisonment without parole out of near-dead status, she said.
Taiwan in 2009 ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights at the prompting of then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), DPP Legislator Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) said.
The KMT had praised the court for upholding the punishment before slamming the judges for its de facto abolition in a circle of self-contradiction, Tsai said.
The opposition should play a constructive role in the legislative work of maintaining the justice system in light of the ruling and not use scare tactics on voters, he said.
“What is a referendum going to be about after the court ruled in favor of the death penalty?” he asked.
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
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
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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