Death penalty abolished only after public consensus: Justice Minister

Death penalty abolished only after public consensus: Justice Minister
"A majority of people in Taiwan oppose the policy, but international data shows that the existence of the death penalty and the level of crime in a country were unrelated".

Taiwan News , Staff Writer
2010-02-02

Taiwan will gradually push for the abolition of the death penalty after a consensus is formed, Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng said yesterday.

Her comments followed a statement by entertainer Pai Ping-ping saying she was so opposed to the abolition she wanted to take examinations in order to be able to execute death row prisoners. The kidnapping and murder of her 17-year-old only daughter Pai Hsiao-yen and the hunt for her killers in 1997 was one of the most high-profile crimes in Taiwan.

Wang said she had been set on abolishing the death penalty from before she took office in May 2008. However, she would wait until a consensus in society had formed before gradually promoting the abolition. Reports said the replacement of the penalty with a life sentence could occur in 2011.

A majority of people in Taiwan opposed the policy, but international data showed that the existence of the death penalty and the level of crime in a country were unrelated, Wang told the MOJ year-end news conference yesterday.

Most governments which abolished the death penalty faced majority opposition from the public, she said. As an example, she named French President Francois Mitterrand who ended executions after he came to power in 1981 even though 60 percent of the public opposed his move.

A ministry taskforce would collect opinions for and against from experts in order to find a positive way to allay public fears and concerns, Wang said.

"I'm not mentioning the abolition of the death penalty today and pushing it immediately," she said.

More than two thirds out of 132 countries had ended the death penalty or halted executions more than ten years after the death sentence was issued, she quoted Amnesty International as saying. Out of 58 nations with the death penalty, 25 did not really put it into practice.

Taiwan had 44 prisoners on death row, but none of those had been executed yet, according to Wang.

The MOJ was likely to shorten the period leading up to the abolition by taking a number of compensatory measures to adapt other penalties and improve education inside prisons, reports said.