Lawmakers across party lines yesterday voiced approval for the resignation of Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) over the row about stays of execution.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said Wang was right to resign because the public and the Presidential Office did not support her rejection of capital punishment. Lin urged the government to execute the prisoners on death row according to the law as soon as possible.
At present there are 44 inmates on death row in Taiwan. No executions have been carried out since December 2005.
“I am glad that the devils can finally go to hell,” said KMT Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾), referring to the 44 convicts on death row.
KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said the government should execute the 44 by the end of the year. If this cannot be achieved, he said, the government should promise not to pardon any of them if the president decides to grant amnesty next year to commemorate the country's 100th National Day.
While agreeing with Wang’s resignation, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), a member of the legislature’s Legal Affairs Committee, said conflicts within the KMT administration and Wang’s resignation could have been avoided with better communication.
“The KMT government has already been in place for two years and it has an overwhelming majority in the legislature … it can pass whatever proposal it needs,” Gao said. “Instead, as you can see, there is no communication within the party … only disagreements.”
Saying that government officials should carry out their responsibilities under the law, DPP Legislator Chen Chieh-ju (陳節如), a member of the legislature's Social Welfare Committee, said Wang could make an even greater difference working outside the government.
TV host Pai Ping-ping (白冰冰), whose daughter was kidnapped and murdered 13 years ago and is an advocate of capital punishment, said yesterday that Wang should step down if she didn’t want to carry out death penalties, adding that if a justice minister did that job well, he or she would go to heaven, not hell.
Citing the example of a much admired Chinese official, Bao Zheng (包拯), who lived about 1,000 years ago during the Song Dynasty and was said to be a righteous judge who beheaded many people, Pai said Bao is loved because he executed so many people who deserved the penalty.
Lu Chin-te (陸晉德), father of the child, Lu Cheng (陸正), who was murdered after being kidnapped in 1987, said Wang’s resignation had rendered some justice to victims’ families, and hoped that the next minister would listen to what they had to say.
The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, on the other hand, yesterday said it regretted Wang’s resignation, and urged the government to work toward abolition of the death penalty.
While expressing her regret, alliance executive director Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡) praised Wang for her insistence on abolishing capital punishment, the announcement to suspend executions and the commission of a task force within the Ministry of Justice to research a possible replacement punishment.
Lin called on the government to uphold its promise to make abolition of the death penalty a policy objective and to come up with a concrete plan to meet this target step by step.
“We urge the Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan, the governing as well as the opposition parties to think outside of the ‘election mentality’ when talking about whether to abandon capital punishment,” Lin said. “Instead, they should place protection of human rights as the priority.”
In the initial stages, she said laws should be revised so that the death sentence could only be handed down as a joint decision, a debate session must take place in court when a death sentence is involved and to make it mandatory for criminals who have been sentenced to death to be accompanied by a defense attorney in the third trial.
“I hope that the new justice minister will not take over the job as an executioner, but rather he or she would carefully review each case according to the law and the two international human rights covenants” that were signed by the president and ratified by the legislature last year, Lin said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and