The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday said it is mulling street protests and plebiscites to remove limits on capital punishment imposed last week by the Constitutional Court.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the KMT was inciting populism and vowed to draft legislation to bolster life imprisonment sentencing without parole and help prevent wrongful convictions.
The death penalty is allowed, but applies only to exceptionally heinous cases that have been tried according to the strictest possible due process standards, the Constitutional Court said in a constitutional interpretation on Friday last week.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The court placed restrictions that made exercising capital punishment “virtually impossible” while ostensibly upholding the penalty, KMT Legislator Wu Tsung-hsien (吳宗憲), a former prosecutor, told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.
KMT lawmakers in the legislature and on the streets would fight to restore the “status quo” of the death penalty, Wu said, adding that they “do not rule out” proposing referendums to challenge the judgement.
People who are third parties to the tragedy of crime should not demand that the family members of people who have been murdered respect the rights of the perpetrator, he said.
The court’s restrictions on the death penalty shield perpetrators from justice and would contribute to social unrest, KMT Legislator Huang Chien-pin (黃建賓) said.
KMT Legislator Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said the Constitutional Court “showed hypocrisy” by neglecting the rights of people targeted by crime.
DPP Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) later told a news conference that the KMT is “sowing populism and division for political gain.”
An average person would have understood the law enough to comply with a decision rendered by the nation’s highest court instead of making slanderous comments about its judges, she said.
The DDP caucus would amend laws to ensure constitutional standards are met in the justice system’s handling of cases and bring life imprisonment without parole out of near-dead status, she said.
Taiwan in 2009 ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights at the prompting of then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), DPP Legislator Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) said.
The KMT had praised the court for upholding the punishment before slamming the judges for its de facto abolition in a circle of self-contradiction, Tsai said.
The opposition should play a constructive role in the legislative work of maintaining the justice system in light of the ruling and not use scare tactics on voters, he said.
“What is a referendum going to be about after the court ruled in favor of the death penalty?” he asked.
Theaters and institutions in Taiwan have received 28 threatening e-mails, including bomb threats, since a documentary critical of China began being screened across the nation last month, the National Security Bureau said yesterday. The actions are part of China’s attempts to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty, it said. State Organs (國有器官) documents allegations that Chinese government officials engage in organ harvesting and other illegal activities. From last month to Friday last week, 28 incidents have been reported of theaters or institutions receiving threats, including bomb and shooting threats, if they did not stop showing the documentary, the bureau said. Although the threats were not carried out,
‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: China continues to build up its military capacity while regularly deploying jets and warships around Taiwan, with the latest balloon spotted on Sunday The US is drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan and the Philippines in case of a Taiwan emergency, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported. They would be incorporated in a first joint operation plan to be formulated in December, Kyodo reported late on Sunday, citing sources familiar with Japan-US relations. A US Marine Corps regiment that possesses High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — a light multiple rocket launcher — would be deployed along the Nansei Island chain stretching from Kyushu to Yonaguni near Taiwan, Kyodo said. According to US military guidelines for dispatching marines in small formations to several locations,
As Taiwan celebrated its baseball team’s victory in the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Premier12 on Sunday, how politicians referred to the team in their congratulatory messages reflected the nation’s political divide. Taiwan, competing under the name Chinese Taipei (中華台北隊), made history with its first-ever Premier12 championship after beating Japan 4-0 at the Tokyo Dome. Right after the game, President William Lai (賴清德) congratulated the team via a post on his Facebook page. Besides the players, Lai also lauded the team’s coaching and medical staff, and the fans cheering for them in Tokyo or watching the live broadcast, saying that “every
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday confirmed that Chinese students visiting Taiwan at the invitation of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation were almost all affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During yesterday’s meeting convened by the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) asked whether the visit was a way to spread China’s so-called “united front” rhetoric, to which MAC Deputy Ministry Shen You-chung (沈有忠) responded with the CCP comment. The MAC noticed that the Chinese individuals visiting Taiwan, including those in sports, education, or religion, have had increasingly impressive backgrounds, demonstrating that the
RSS