Joint Statement | Will the President Accept the Hot Potato of Miscarriages of Justice That the Judiciary Rejects? — Joint Statement by Civil Society Organizations

In response to recent media reports that President Tsai Ing-wen will exercise her pardon power before leaving office, the Judicial Reform Foundation, Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, Covenants Watch, Association for Human Education, and Taiwan Innocence Project jointly issued a two-point statement to President Tsai Ing-wen and President-elect Lai Ching-te:

1. With President Tsai Ing-wen's term coming to an end, we call on President Tsai to pardon the innocent and demonstrate the spirit of human rights and humanitarian concern.
2. With President-elect Lai Ching-te about to take office, we call on President Lai to recognize miscarriages of justice and confront the unfinished business of judicial human rights.

I. Wrongful Convictions are Difficult to Vindicate, and the Innocent Face Dire Conditions in Prison

Innocent individuals and their supporting organizations often have to spend decades on the path to seeking innocence. Taking former death row inmate Su Chien-ho as an example, it took 17 years for Su and his two co-defendants to finally be acquitted in a retrial. Similarly, Hsu Tzu-chiang, also a former death row inmate, underwent 21 full years of litigation before waiting for his acquittal. Even Su Ping-kun, who was previously pardoned, still spent 18 years after his pardon to obtain an innocent life cleared of charges.

However, many innocent individuals whom civil society organizations have long supported are still growing old day by day in correctional institutions. In addition to Chiou Ho-shun and Wang Hsin-fu, innocent victims of death penalty miscarriages whose health conditions have deteriorated severely due to prolonged detention, Lo Ming-tsun, a former head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Hsinchuang Precinct who was accused of accepting bribes, also contracted cancer while serving his sentence. Following an assessment by the medical team of the Yilan Prison, he was approved for medical parole in August 2021. However, in February of this year, Yilan Prison refused to extend his medical parole on the grounds that visual inspection showed Lo Ming-tsun's medical condition had improved, forcing 70-year-old Lo Ming-tsun, dragging his sickly body, back to prison where he remains detained to this day.

days="">Wrongful death penalty case, imprisoned for 36 years, 64 years old this year. Suffering from severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), along with long-term health deterioration including heart disease, hypotension, skin diseases, and tooth loss.

Name of the Innocent	Current Situation
Chiou Ho-shun
Wang Hsin-fu	Wrongful death penalty case, imprisoned for 18 years, 72 years old this year. Has undergone multiple surgeries for a prosthetic eye and suffers from degenerative arthritis, making walking difficult.
Lo Ming-tsun	Sentenced to 13 years in prison, returned to custody and imprisoned since 2020, 70 years old this year. Contracted cancer while serving his sentence, with a severely poor health condition.

II. Calling on President Tsai Ing-wen and President-elect Lai Ching-te to Pardon the Innocent, Realize Human Rights Justice, and Demonstrate Humanitarian Concern

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All three of the aforementioned cases are cases that civil society organizations have supported for many years and which international experts have also closely monitored every four years during the international review of the two Covenants. Not only has the Control Yuan issued investigative reports on them, but even the Prosecutor-General has filed extraordinary appeals. Despite this, it remains extremely difficult for the judiciary to admit its errors. Furthermore, the rapid deterioration of the lives and health of the innocent within correctional facilities makes the urgency of rescue even more critical.

To this day, the judicial system remains unwilling to correct the systemic errors that occurred in the cases of Chiou Ho-shun, Wang Hsin-fu, and Lo Ming-tsun, nor is it willing to face and bear the legal and even moral responsibility for wrongfully detaining innocent people because of these errors. This has made these cases a huge stain on Taiwan's judicial system and human rights record internationally. When the judicial system passes the hot potato of wrongful convictions back and forth, today, only the presidential pardon power vested by the Constitution can put an end to the plight of the innocent—granting them at least the humble opportunity, much like Su Ping-kun, to continue fighting for their innocence with dignity outside of prison.

During her term, President Tsai Ing-wen exercised her pardon power based on human rights considerations, demonstrating that President Tsai is willing to, and indeed does, exercise the pardon power for individual cases based on human rights considerations. Recently, media reports have also repeatedly indicated that President Tsai Ing-wen is about to exercise her pardon power before leaving office.

To this end, civil society organizations call on President Tsai to seriously consider the physical health conditions, grievances, and unfair trials suffered by the aforementioned innocent individuals, and to swiftly grant them a full pardon exempting them from crime and punishment through the presidential pardon power vested by the Constitution. If there is not enough time before leaving office, we also call on President-elect Lai Ching-te to confront this unfinished business of human rights and finalize the decision to grant a pardon!

Statement-Issuing Organizations

Judicial Reform Foundation
Taiwan Association for Human Rights
Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty
Covenants Watch
Association for Human Education
Taiwan Innocence Project

Press Contact

Li Ming-ju, Attorney-at-Law, Deputy Executive Director, Judicial Reform Foundation
mj@jrf.org.tw
(02)25231178 #17