President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday it was important to have more debate on whether to abolish the death penalty, adding that it would take time before answers were found.
Ma said that whether to abolish capital punishment or stay executions indefinitely were two different issues that should be addressed separately.
This was the first time Ma commented on the matter since former minister of justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) resigned on Thursday amid a public outcry after her announcement that she would not sign execution orders for the 44 convicts on death row during her term.
Ma said the interim steps the administration had taken before abolishing the death penalty were the proper way to go.
Those measures include dropping the mandatory death penalty, tightening procedures for issuing death sentences, lengthening prison sentences for serious crimes and raising the parole threshold for life sentences, he said.
Ma said that education, debate and promotion of the issue, however, were seriously inadequate.
“I hope the public, including the Ministry of Justice, will look into the issue [and provide] room for rational discussion,” he said.
Ma said that while he understood the process would take time, if there were no public debate, it would continue to remain a highly emotional — and potentially detrimental — subject.
Ma made the remarks during a meeting with the Prosecutors Association at the Presidential Office yesterday morning.
He called on the association, the judiciary and the justice ministry to play a more active role in promoting the idea of abolishing capital punishment.
Ma said that in 1995, when he was minister of justice, the ministry conducted an opinion poll on the abolition of the death penalty, which found that 72 percent of ordinary people, 78 percent of the elite (such as university professors or businesspeople) and 88 percent of judicial personnel — including prosecutors, judges and court clerks — opposed abolition.
“It is interesting,” Ma said. “Half of the respondents said they did not think the death penalty was an effective deterrent to serious crime. I think most people are against abolishing the death penalty mainly because of a lack of security.”
Ma said that by asking university students the same question on various occasions, he found that more women were against abolishing the death penalty than men.
“I don’t intend to emphasize the differences between men and women, but it seems their intuition is that it would not be safe to abolish the death penalty,” he said. “It also shows that they don’t understand the issue very well.”
The question of the death penalty is a matter of concern globally, Ma said, and the UN also passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.
Meanwhile, acting Minister of Justice Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘), who Ma has nominated for state prosecutor-general, yesterday denied he had “murdered” Wang with his remarks on the death penalty during a legislative hearing last week.
“I told Wang when she invited me to be her vice minister in May 2008 that my position was that the 29 people on death row [at that time] should be executed according to the law and she said she understood my position,” Huang told a legislative hearing to review his nomination yesterday afternoon.
Earlier, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) asked Huang whether his remark had led to Wang’s downfall.
“You ‘murdered’ Wang,” Lee said.
“Before I came to the first legislative hearing last Monday, I knew legislators would ask me questions about the death penalty. I asked Wang how I should answer the questions. She told me to state my position honestly,” Huang said.
“I do not agree with your claim that I ‘murdered’ Wang,” he said.
Huang became acting minister after Wang left her post on Thursday.
Lee also asked whether Huang would order the execution of people on death row as acting minister.
“The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office and the ministry must study the documents concerning the 44 inmates on death row before the ministry decides whether to carry out the execution orders,” Huang said.
Huang said he would carry out execution orders as required by law.
Huang told a legislative hearing last Monday that while the 44 people on death row should be executed, he would support an amendment abolishing the death penalty.
Wang, a devout Buddhist, published a statement titled Reason and Forgiveness — Suspension of Practicing the Death Penalty last Tuesday, in which she expressed her opposition to capital punishment.
“I will not execute any of the people on death row during my term. I would rather go to hell,” Wang also told reporters.
Wang then tendered her resignation on Thursday after a public outcry over her statement.
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) approved it hours after reporting the matter to Ma.
Wang’s resignation came hours after the Presidential Office broke its silence on capital punishment, saying that death sentences should be carried out and that any stay of execution must follow the law.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS