President Ch'en Shui-bian and Minister Ch'en Ting-nan, Fulfill Your Promise Starting with This Death Penalty Case

Call for a Halt to State Killing

"Using the method of state killing to prove that the acts committed by a citizen who has been convicted of murder are wrong." What kind of thinking logic is this?

According to reports, in Kaohsiung City, two brothers, Lin Meng-k'ai and Lin Hsin-hung, chased and killed two fellow clansmen named Lin in the street with samurai swords over trivial matters such as neighbors speaking ill of them, resulting in one death and one severe injury. The Supreme Court considered the Lin brothers' crimes to be "inexcusable and unforgivable" and sentenced both to death with finality. The Alliance for the Promotion of Alternative to Death Penalty (hereinafter referred to as the Alliance) has no intention to comment on this individual case here; however, given that both President Ch'en Shui-bian and Minister Ch'en Ting-nan have previously proclaimed a human rights policy of abolishing the death penalty, the government should put forward more concrete and proactive actions on how to promote the abolition of the death penalty. Among these, how to halt the execution of the death penalty is sufficient to test the government's determination to promote its abolition.

However, three years have passed, and yet we see no determination from the government. From when Minister Ch'en Ting-nan announced the abolition of the death penalty within three years in 2001 until the end of August this year, a total of 28 death row inmates have been executed in Taiwan (this does not include death row inmates from military trial cases, which are even harder to observe and are shrouded in mystery). It seems that this October, this figure might increase further.

According to the latest information from Amnesty International: 80 countries worldwide have already completely abolished the death penalty, meaning the death penalty may not be imposed for any crime; 15 countries have abolished the death penalty in peacetime (while retaining the death penalty for wartime offenses); 23 countries have not abolished the death penalty in law, but have abolished it in practice, meaning they have not carried out executions for over a decade, or have made commitments to the international community not to execute, thus ensuring with political and practical certainty that executions will not be carried out; lastly, there are still 78 countries that retain the death penalty (though only 28 countries carried out executions last year, and our country is listed among them).

It is by no means an exaggeration to say that the abolition of the death penalty has gradually become an international consensus, and Europe has already become a society without the death penalty. It is particularly noteworthy that many countries had a background of long periods without executions prior to abolishing the death penalty; for example, Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976 but had not carried out executions since 1963, and Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2003 but had not carried out executions since 1986. Furthermore, the 23 countries that have not abolished the death penalty but actually do not carry it out mostly adopt the abolition of the death penalty as their ultimate goal (Russia being a prominent example).

The Alliance therefore strongly argues that the government should at least endeavor first to halt the execution of the death penalty, and its proactive actions should include:

1. The determination and boldness that a president as a political leader ought to possess, exercising the power of clemency to commute all death sentences to life imprisonment uniformly, which can be done without amending the law. For example: Last year, Governor Ryan of Illinois in the United States proclaimed the wholesale commutation of sentences for the 167 death row inmates in the state on the grounds of "the immorality of the death penalty," serving as a lesson from another mountain.
2. The Ministry of Justice should make the information regarding death penalty executions public and transparent. Once a death penalty is executed, life cannot be restored. We cannot accept a situation where the public only learns about the news of a finalized death row inmate about to be executed when it hits newspaper headlines, thereby missing the opportunity for re-examination. Similarly, regarding military trials, which frequently become black holes for criminal human rights, the Ministry of National Defense should also make death penalty execution information public.
3. We further urge the government not to simplify its governmental responsibility when facing criminal offenders into using state killing as a method of handling; we also call upon the government to comprehensively review criminal policy, confront the plight of crime victims, and propose proactive and effective actions.

Halting the execution of the death penalty, aside from allowing the government to leisurely plan complementary measures to replace the death penalty, can also grant the general public more room to rationally debate issues such as what the meaning and value of the death penalty actually are, the illusory significance of the death penalty as a crime deterrent in empirical research, and whether the concept of a nation built on human rights can be compatible with the existence of the death penalty, serving as a basis of consensus for future legislative alternatives to the death penalty.

Therefore, the Alliance for the Promotion of Alternative to Death Penalty will also comprehensively launch DEATH WATCH to systematically care for all death penalty cases. Before information on death penalty cases is completely made public, all sectors are welcome to provide death penalty case data to the Alliance for the Promotion of Alternative to Death Penalty, and we will monitor: whether President Ch'en Shui-bian and Minister Ch'en Ting-nan possess the determination to fulfill their promises.

In addition, this afternoon, the convener of the Alliance for the Promotion of Alternative to Death Penalty, Professor Ch'ü Hai-yüan, along with representatives of other allied groups, will personally visit the Ministry of Justice to seek an audience with Minister Ch'en and submit a petition.