The majority of Taiwanese oppose abolishing the death penalty and think such a decision should be made through a referendum, a poll released yesterday showed.
More than 80 percent of respondents in the survey, conducted by a new think tank founded by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強), said they oppose abolishing the death penalty and a Constitutional Court judgement on capital punishment.
Fifty-seven percent of respondents said the Constitution should be amended to limit the court’s power, while 65.8 percent said a public referendum on the death penalty should be held in 2026.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
In September, the Constitutional Court ruled that although the death penalty conforms with the Constitution, it should only be applied in “exceptional” cases.
KMT lawmakers criticized the ruling, saying “it effectively abolished capital punishment in Taiwan.”
The poll showed that the majority of Taiwanese want a referendum on capital punishment to be held alongside the 2026 general election, Lo told a news conference yesterday.
“More than 80 percent of people disagree with the Constitutional Court’s ruling on capital punishment. The justices should reflect on why their public support has diminished recently,” he said.
As a ruling by the Constitutional Court cannot be overturned, Taiwanese want to a referendum on the matter, he said.
That 57 percent of Taiwanese think the Constitution should be amended to limit the Constitutional Court’s power suggests that recent judgements issued by the justices do not align with public opinion, KMT Legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) said.
“The public feels their rights have been infringed upon by the justices’ judgement on the death penalty... When the justices go against the will of the people, direct democracy and public opinion should be exercised,” KMT Legislator Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) said.
People cannot accept that the justices have directed the legislature to amend the law according to their rulings, KMT Legislator Ye Yuan-zhi (葉元之) added.
Even among the survey’s respondents who self-identified as pan-green camp supporters, there is significant agreement on these issues, which places enormous pressure on the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Chinese Culture University professor Niu Tse-hsun (鈕則勳) said.
“The ruling party and the Central Election Commission should respect the will of the people and address their calls for a referendum on the death penalty,” he said.
The Apollo Survey and Research Co conducted the poll from Oct. 14 to Oct. 17 among Taiwanese aged 18 or older by phone. The survey had 1,081 valid samples, and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS