Responding to a public outcry and calls from legislators from her own party to step down, Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) resigned on Thursday night. In an open letter on Wednesday, Wang stated her opposition to the death penalty and said she “would rather go to hell” than order the execution of the 44 convicts on death row.
From a humanitarian standpoint, Wang’s behavior was admirable. But when the highest judicial official in the land publicly advocates breaking the law and violates the neutrality she should maintain between criminal and victim, she hurts the government, the Ministry of Justice and the spirit of the law — not to mention the campaign against the death penalty.
Wang’s personal opposition to the death penalty and her public refusal in her position as justice minister to carry out the law are two different things. She is entitled to her own ideals and values, but the question was if she, as the justice minister, had the right to ignore a verdict or possessed the power to grant pardons so she could refuse to carry out the law, especially since these cases have gone through extraordinary appeals and been finalized, with some cases even having been subjected to a constitutional interpretation. The answer is no.
No executions have been carried out since 2006. There are now 44 death row inmates who do not know whether they will live or die. In a democracy, executions always set off a hot debate between proponents and opponents of the death sentence, and a decision involving 44 lives is sure to have a major political and social impact.
The public and the media have questioned this situation, but as past justice ministers have trod carefully and found reasons to postpone the executions, both the public and media have avoided forcing the ministry’s hand.
When Wang publicly declared her refusal to order any executions, she challenged the families of victims and the general public. Opinion polls show that more than 70 percent of respondents oppose abolishing the death penalty and that 40 percent thought Wang should step down. The Control Yuan deemed it necessary to launch an investigation and legislators from both camps were asking questions. Not even President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who opposes the death penalty, could protect Wang. Both the Presidential Office and the premier declared that while public opinion remains divided over the future of capital punishment, the Ministry of Justice should go ahead and order that the executions be carried out. This was a major blow to Taiwan’s movement against the death penalty.
Wang was not the first justice minister to oppose capital punishment. When Ma held the post 20 years ago, he was personally against it but understood the legal implications of his job and that executions had to be carried out until the law is changed. Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) and later justice ministers also moved toward the abolition of the death penalty by doing such things as changing mandatory death sentences to discretionary sentences, thus giving judges greater freedom to decide.
Apart from not ordering any executions, Wang did little during her two years in office. She did not initiate a debate about the death penalty or plan any legal amendments, nor did she campaign for the abolition of capital punishment. When she suddenly took such a public stance on the issue, it was not surprising that many media outlets questioned whether she was simply out for publicity.
Wang’s statements were not widely supported by either the public or government officials. While she may be a good human rights lawyer, she was a less impressive justice minister.
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