Today’s opinion page focuses on the death penalty, in light of the Jan. 16 execution of Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱). The death penalty debate is complex, but the circumstances surrounding Huang’s execution and the frustration, anger and suspicion evident in the articles by human rights advocates published today are not so much about the core moral implications of state violence, they are more concerned with how a death row inmate whose remedial options were apparently not exhausted could be executed, only four months after Constitutional Judgement No. 8 was announced following six months’ deliberation.
The situation raises questions over whose interpretation on the state’s constitutional right to execute a person should take precedence and what procedures should be followed before the most final of sanctions can legitimately be applied; it raises suspicions surrounding politicians leveraging the shock of executions to distract from inconvenient political situations and to appeal to populist impulses; and it involves the part public opinion should play in what is either a moral or legal argument within the context of a democracy.
Muddying the waters of whether politicians should have a say in the debate tempts them to hide behind lofty arguments of morality (human rights), justice and the efficacy of legal instruments (the rule of law) and the public will (democracy) to further their own agendas. The discomforting truth behind the oft-quoted statistic that more than 80 percent of Taiwanese oppose the abolition of the death penalty is that the moral weight of that figure should presuppose the public’s thorough grasp of the complexities of the situation. However, much of the debate is informed by agenda-driven politicians or click-bait hungry media.
On Sept. 19 last year, in anticipation of the Constitutional Court’s announcement of Judgement No. 8, Chu Yun-peng (朱雲鵬) of the Chinese Association for Human Rights and Taiwan Deliberative Democracy Association reported the findings of his group’s public opinion survey, saying that 81 percent of respondents agreed that the legality of the death penalty should be decided by a referendum or the Legislative Yuan. He added that the figure decreased to 72.6 percent, which he called a “slight decline,” after the respondents had participated in a discussion on the issue.
A public referendum is not the correct method to determine a constitutional, legal and moral issue such as this. It might be an option in an ideal world with perfect transmission of information and objective explanation of the arguments, but that is not the world we live in. Neither is the legislature a reliable forum for reasoned, rational debate on an issue with as weighty implications as this: The legislative chaos that has occurred since February last year has reached particularly egregious levels, but it is neither unprecedented nor surprising.
Then there is Chu’s contention that 10 percentage points is a “slight decline” when respondents had the opportunity to explore the issue further. It is not. The public was also not privy to the length or balance of that discussion, nor how comprehensive, balanced and informed it was. If public opinion is the measure applied, and public opinion can be swayed, where is the moral certitude?
The articles on this page demonstrate suspicion of and frustration in politicians and their agendas, but also in the justices who delivered Judgement No. 8, which did not go far enough and was so easily disregarded. At the very least, Huang’s access to remedial measures should have been a test case to set the bar for the stringent measures of due process demanded by Judgement No. 8.
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