President Ma Ying-jeou met with representatives from the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) at the Presidential Office on the afternoon of June 15, during which both sides exchanged opinions on a broad range of topics related to maintaining or abolishing capital punishment.
President Ma stated that the ROC is a democratic nation that operates according to the rule of law. He said the government is mindful of global trends and also seeks to maintain an awareness of the various standpoints of the public here. Nonetheless, the government will continue to operate in accordance with the law, he said.
The president remarked that the ROC at present still has not abolished the death penalty. Consequently, there is no reason that the Ministry of Justice or other agencies would not carry out the sentences on criminals who have received a final and irrevocable death sentence in the ROC's court of third instance. He said, however, that there might be exceptions where there are extenuating circumstances, such as a petition for retrial, the filing of an extraordinary appeal, or a petition for a constitutional interpretation by the Justices of the Constitutional Court.
President Ma said that in the two years since he took office, there was a temporary moratorium on capital punishment here. In March of this year, however, Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng ultimately resigned in the wake of questioning she faced in the Legislative Yuan and the polarization of views on the issue among the general public. The president said that last year the ROC ratified two United Nations (UN) human rights covenants. While the covenants lean toward the abolishment of capital punishment, the documents have not established a legal obligation to do so. The UN, he said, has passed a number of resolutions calling for a temporary moratorium on capital punishment. Whether the UN resolutions are binding, however, depends on a variety of conditions.
President Ma explained that the stance adopted by the ROC is the same as that of the two UN covenants. The Ministry of Justice, he noted, has a long-term goal of abolishing the death penalty. In the meantime, the current policy is to reduce the use of capital punishment, first by doing away with the mandatory death penalty, and second by making it more difficult for those sentenced to life imprisonment to obtain parole. The president said that in the past the Ministry of Justice had proposed that when a capital punishment case reaches the court of third instance, a unanimous decision among the judges on the collegiate bench should be required to uphold a death sentence, and oral arguments should be heard, but the Judicial Yuan rejected both proposals.
The president stated that the government is very aware of the efforts made by the members of the TAEDP. Domestic public opinion, however, is just about the same as it was in 1993, he said. As a result, communication still needs to be carried out on many fronts, the president said. He stated that the Ministry of Justice in the past also held public hearings to discuss the issue and hopefully reach a decision that would reflect public opinion.
President Ma noted that six or seven death sentences were carried out during the three years and three months of his service as Justice Minister, and that he was the first Justice Minister to question judgments handed down by the Supreme Court. In three instances, extraordinary appeals were filed after discussions with the prosecutor general. Prior to the case of the Hsichih Trio, no other justice minister had halted the execution of a death sentence, he said.
The president commented that decisions by European nations to abolish the death penalty did not happen overnight, but were years in the making. Meanwhile, other countries have abolished or suspended the death penalty only to reinstate it later, which goes to show the difficulty of reaching a consensus on this issue. The government, the president said, hopes to achieve a broad consensus on the matter.
The delegation from the TAEDP was led by its chairman, Chiu Hei-yuan, to the Presidential Office in the afternoon to meet with President Ma. Also attending the meeting was Presidential Deputy Secretary-General Lai Feng-wei and Deputy Minister of Justice Wu Chen-huan.