Joint Statement | Opposing Unconstitutional and Human Rights-Violating Legislative Amendments—Joint Statement by Civil Society Organizations Concerning the Executive Yuan's Draft Amendments Imposing Harsher Penalties

From late last year to August of this year, legislators successively proposed bills to introduce "life imprisonment without parole." On October 30 of this year, the Executive Yuan also approved a draft adopting a similar position, providing that persons convicted of certain serious violent offenses—including intentional homicide, attempted homicide, and fatal child abuse—and sentenced to life imprisonment or fixed-term imprisonment exceeding 10 years would be ineligible for parole. The criteria are even more severe than those in some legislators' versions, seriously infringing upon human rights.

Moreover, on July 1 of this year, the Executive Yuan officially implemented the Control Mechanism for Ministry Draft Bills Submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Human Rights Impact Assessment for Bills, both of which are intended to strengthen human rights awareness among executive agencies when proposing legislation and to implement human rights protections. Who could have expected that shortly after the new system took effect, the Executive Yuan would hastily approve a draft prepared by the Ministry of Justice that lacks an adequate factual foundation and departs from human rights principles? For the sake of political interests, the Executive Yuan has disregarded proper legal procedures, undermining the human rights values that Taiwan has painstakingly built over decades since democratization.

In response, civil society organizations jointly issue the following statement:

1. Retroactive Application of the New Law Violates the Protection of Legitimate Expectations and Raises Serious Constitutional Concerns

The Ministry of Justice's draft involves the Criminal Code of the Republic of China, the Enforcement Law of the Criminal Code of the Republic of China, and the Prison Act. Among them, provisions concerning the retroactive application of parole-ineligibility rules, as well as provisions stipulating that periods of custody may not be credited toward prison terms after a final death sentence is revoked and replaced with another sentence, conflict with the principle under the Criminal Code of the Republic of China that the former law applies unless the new law is more favorable to the offender, the constitutional principle of the protection of legitimate expectations, and the spirit of J.Y. Interpretation No. 801, thus raising serious constitutional concerns.

That the Ministry of Justice and the Executive Yuan chose to propose such a highly controversial draft at a time when the Constitutional Court is unable to function substantively—while disregarding the important legal principles described above—raises serious questions about the intent behind the proposal.

2. Barring Parole Across the Board for Sentences Exceeding Ten Years Also Raises Constitutional Concerns

The Ministry of Justice's draft amendment to the Criminal Code of the Republic of China mandates that parole be barred across the board for cases involving intentional homicide, attempted homicide, and fatal child abuse where the offender is sentenced to life imprisonment or fixed-term imprisonment exceeding 10 years. This defeats the purpose of the parole system. Parole is intended to encourage inmates to reform and return to a free society earlier, facilitating rehabilitation while mitigating the harms of long-term
incarceration. Providing by law that persons sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment exceeding 10 years are categorically ineligible for parole not only raises concerns under the principle of proportionality, but also departs from the fundamental purpose of imprisonment and conflicts with the spirit of J.Y. Interpretations Nos. 755 and 756 and TCC Judgment 113-Hsien-Pan-2 (2024), "Case on Life Sentence Prisoners Serving Remaining Sentence after Revocation of Parole."

Recently, a prison administration professional also published an op-ed concerning the life-imprisonment proposal, stating: "Prison management relies on mutual trust and hope. Once the system strips away hope, mutual trust vanishes, and prison management will collapse." The Executive Yuan must not turn a deaf ear to this warning.

3. Life Imprisonment Without Parole Constitutes Torture, and the Severity of Existing Punishments Must Not Be Overlooked

Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole deprives an individual of lifelong hope and a sense of time, strips away dignity and the meaning of existence, and reduces a person's life to merely waiting for death. Particularly for elderly inmates, watching oneself grow old and ultimately die in prison may amount to cruel and inhuman punishment. Such punishment raises serious concerns regarding the human dignity guaranteed by the Constitution.

Internationally, the German Federal Constitutional Court held in its 1977 Life Imprisonment case, BVerfGE 45, 187, that human dignity requires a person serving a life sentence to retain a concrete and realistically attainable prospect of regaining freedom. The European Court of Human Rights likewise held in Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom (2013) that, for a life sentence to remain compatible with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, it must be reducible, meaning that there must be both a prospect of release and a possibility of review. The Supreme Court of Canada similarly held in R. v. Bissonnette, 2022 SCC 23, that a sentence depriving an offender of any realistic possibility of parole is degrading in nature, incompatible with human dignity, and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The outcome report of the "Interview Project for Inmates Serving Finalized Death Sentences and Life Sentences", published by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) this September, also points out that during their long years of incarceration, serious offenders are confined to cramped living spaces, unable to engage in meaningful activities, and face an extreme lack of correctional programs, living monotonous and stagnant lives day after day. Under such circumstances, while the state fails to fulfill its responsibility of rehabilitation, inmates can nevertheless be seen relying on self-reflection and mutual support among peers during long-term incarceration to develop new perspectives on their past conduct. When the state completely denies a person the possibility of rehabilitation at the moment they commit a wrong and cuts off all hope, it amounts to an erasure of humanity—a power the state must not possess.

Moreover, since Taiwan implemented the 25-year parole-eligibility threshold for life imprisonment in 2006, no inmate sentenced under that revised system has yet reached the point at which the practical operation and outcomes of parole eligibility can be fully evaluated. The extent of its effect on recidivism therefore remains uncertain. Deliberating at this stage on raising the threshold further and creating a system of life imprisonment without parole lacks an adequate empirical foundation.

Finally, Taiwan is not experiencing social disorder. As can be seen from the Ministry of Justice's own crime statistics, research reports from the Academy for the Judiciary, Ministry of Justice, and international comparisons, Taiwan has continued to experience declining crime rates and remains among the world's safer societies, including in comparison with many relatively safe European countries. There is simply no factual basis for assuming that harsher punishment is necessary. Legislators and the Executive Yuan proposing major punitive criminal-law amendments at this time therefore lack the empirical foundation required for sound criminal policy.

In Summary, Civil Society Organizations Jointly Call For:

1. The Executive Yuan should actively withdraw the draft and publicly explain the complete administrative process through which it was developed, including the results of the human rights impact assessment.
   
2. The Judicial Yuan should raise objections to the human rights violations raised by this draft and refuse to countersign it.
   
3. The Legislative Yuan should hold public hearings and carefully evaluate, on the basis of facts and legal principles, proposed amendments concerning parole eligibility periods and their application. It should not pass legislation that infringes human rights and raises serious constitutional concerns.
   
4. The National Human Rights Commission should clearly express its position and propose amendments regarding the drafts submitted by legislators and the Executive Yuan.
   

Joint Statement Organizations (Listed in Order of Stroke Count):

Covenant Watch; Taiwan Association for Human Rights; Taiwan Criminal Defense Lawyers Association; Taiwan Association for Innocence; Taiwan Labor Front; Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty; Judicial Reform Foundation; Taiwan Prison Reform

Supplementary Materials:

August 27, 2025 — Joint Statement by Civil Society Organizations: Life Imprisonment Without Parole is a Toxic Placebo

September 4, 2025 — Making Life Imprisonment Harsher is a Flawed Policy (Mirror Daily)

September 7, 2025 — Life Imprisonment "Without Parole" Will Cause Prisons to Collapse (Up Media)

October 21, 2025 — Despair-Inducing Cruel Punishments Should Not Exist in Taiwan's Democratic System (Mirror Daily)