government is defense

Having observed a de facto moratorium on executions since late 2005, Taiwan now finds itself being closely scrutinized by international human rights groups, as a resumption of executions appears imminent.

Despite mounting pressure in the form of petitions and requests to meet officials where several have been urged to stand firm on Taiwan’s stated goal of abolishing the death penalty, it seems increasingly likely that the government is prepared to ignore the global trend to abolition in the face of a public that continues to support executions.

In the government’s defense, it has said that the justice minister is legally required to sign death warrants if a death row inmate exhausts all appeals — retrial, extraordinary appeal or constitutional interpretation — and that the resumption of executions will not compromise its efforts to pursue the long-term goal of abolition.

“This is a worrying development given the government’s commitment to the abolition of the death penalty. Nor it is logical,” Roger Hood, emeritus professor of criminology and emeritus fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford, said in an e-mail to the Taipei Times.

Hood has also been a consultant to the UN on the death penalty and was responsible for the UN secretary-heneral’s reports on the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Quinquennial Surveys of Capital Punishment in 1995, 2000-2001 and 2004-2005.

The manner in which the government dealt with the recent death penalty dispute sparked by former justice minister Wang ­Ching-feng’s (王清峰) open letter supporting the moratorium and her subsequent resignation has been incomprehensible to Hood and many other international campaigners.

What the government has done recently “is a shock to the international community,” which had been optimistic that Taiwan was moving toward abolition, said Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡), executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP).

A member of the steering committee of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), Lin said the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) both recently expressed their concern.

These expressions were in addition to public letters to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) from Amnesty International and the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN).

Aside from the petitions, action has also been taken to push for a reconsideration, as reflected in comments made to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Shen Lyu-shun’s (沈呂巡) on his recent trip to Europe, which led him to worry that the issue could delay the EU’s review of Taiwan’s suitability for visa-free travel.

The European Economic and Trade Office, the EU’s representative office in Taipei and other international organizations have all sought meetings with government officials and party leaders on the issue.

In a letter to Ma on behalf of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), Professor Thomas Rice reminded Ma: “Your public and official assurance to us in 2008 should not be overlooked or dismissed due to transitory political debate and Wang’s resignation.”

The WCADP delegation led by Rice visited Ma on June 18, 2008, when he “assured … that the moratorium on the death penalty would remain in force,” Rice said in the letter.

In line with Ma’s promises to end the death penalty in public speeches and in private when meeting international guests, he designated Wang justice minister, signed the International Covenant on Human Rights, and his party dominates the legislature. It is therefore perplexing to international campaigners that Ma has just backed away from abolition, Lin said.

Hood said that “once the death penalty is recognized as a breach of the right to life and a cruel and inhumane punishment, then it is unethical to execute persons who were given the death sentence in the past — to ‘clear the desk,’ so to speak.”

In the past few years, Taiwan has been lauded for moving closer to full abolition, with the moratorium, the removal of mandatory death sentences from the law books and the reduction of crimes punishable by death.

“There has also been some movement toward abolition among countries and territories that have continued to carry out executions although much less frequently. This was the case … in Taiwan,” it was said in 2005’s Seventh Quinquennail Survey of Capital Punishment.

In an e-mail exchange with the Taipei Times, William Schabas, director of the Irish Center for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, said: “Many states abolish the death penalty gradually, often through lengthy periods where they do not impose capital punishment even though offenders continue to receive death sentences. Taiwan is in such a phase.”

Being regarded as a country that “looks likely that abolition will be achieved within two or three years” as Hood had said earlier this year in a lecture in London, Taiwan is now at a crucial point in its path towards abolishing the death penalty.

ADPAN said in its statement that efforts the government can make toward abolition “include ensuring the life of all 44 prisoners currently on death row.”

It is believed the government began to consider a resumption of executions when polls showed that most people oppose abolition, which would make advocating the phasing out of capital punishment in an election year almost impossible.

Based on his study of how abolition has evolved into a global trend over the past 20 years, Hood said that “political will has been the key.”

“The abolitionists believe that although public opinion is not to be ignored, the task is to inform and lead the general public to appreciate and then to accept the case for abolition. In many of the countries of Eastern Europe and former soviet Central Asia, as well as in Africa, Presidents have led the way in bringing about abolition,” Hood said.

Schabas expressed a similar view.

“The role of public opinion in criminal justice should not be exaggerated. If we were to leave determination of individual sentences to public opinion, there would be terrible injustices, and sentences would no doubt be unacceptably harsh in certain circumstances,” he said.

The justifications for the death penalty often cited by retentionists lie in the deep-rooted mentality of retribution and the belief that it can act as a deterrent to those who contemplate committing crimes.

Saying that execution is banned in many countries on the grounds that it inevitably, however administered, violates the universally ­accepted right to life and the right to not to be subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment, Hood added that “the human rights approach can reject both jurisdictions.”

“Social science evidence does not support the claim that capital punishment is necessary to deter murder … even if it could have a marginal effect, it could only be reached by high rates of execution, mandatorily and speedily enforced … This would increase the probability of innocent or wrongfully convicted persons being executed and execution of people who … did not deserve to die,” Hood said.

Schabas, who has assisted the UN Secretary-General coordinate UN Quinquennial Surveys of Capital Punishment, said that the global trend to abolition “is all part of a process of humanity becoming more civilized, and that has been underway for many countries.”

The recent development in Taiwan is “an unfortunate setback,” Schabas said, but he believed that the forces that led to the decline in the use of the death penalty in Taiwan would ultimately prevail.

“They go beyond the caprices of individual politicians. There may be temporary setbacks, but the long term trend is very clear,” Schabas said.

In Rice’s letter to Ma, he said the WCDAP, and each of its over 100 member organizations, urges Ma and the KMT to remain steadfast to their abolitionist ideals. “Difficult political positions call for great courage … Now is not the time to swap human lives for potential votes.”