by Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo Credit: james9052311/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
THE FIRST EXECUTION under the Lai administration took place yesterday. This was the first execution carried out by the Taiwanese government in five years. For the execution to have been carried out, the Minister of Justice and President would have to sign off. The last execution in Taiwan took place under the Tsai administration in April 2020.
The executed individual was Huang Lin-kai, who was convicted on the basis of a 2013 double killing. Huang killed his ex-girlfriend, Wang Ping-chih, and her mother, apparently angered by allegations that he stole 200,000 NT from Wang’s bank account. Huang broke into Wang’s home on October 1st, 2013 and strangled Wang’s mother to death, then sexually assaulted and strangled Wang when she returned home an hour later. After stealing 10,000 NT, he left, with the bodies found by Wang’s father several hours later.
After Huang’s execution, there are now 36 remaining prisoners on death row. Huang’s execution has sparked condemnation from civil society groups including the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, Judicial Reform Foundation, Taiwan Association for Human Rights, and Covenants Watch. Namely, Huang had not exhausted his appeals and was still seeking relief. That is, at present, after a Constitutional Court ruling on capital punishment in September that restricted the scope of capital punishment but kept it still on the books, the cases of the 37 prisoners on death row were being reviewed to see if judgments were in line with the ruling.
For executions to be carried out after the ruling, a collegial panel would have to come to a unanimous decision. Yet death row prisoners have not been able to find out whether this has taken place, including in the case of Huang, which civil society groups stated raised procedural concerns. As such, civil society organizations have criticized the execution as having taken place for political reasons.
The execution took place one day after capital punishment was upheld by the Kaohsiung branch of the Taiwan High Court for Liang Yu-chih, who sexually assaulted and murdered a Malaysian student studying in Taiwan in October 2020.
The ruling, as well as the execution one day later, is proof that capital punishment is still on the books in Taiwan. Namely, after the Constitutional Court’s ruling in September, the KMT framed the DPP as having achieved the phasing out of the death penalty through its control of the courts. The KMT used the ruling as political ammunition for its ongoing efforts to freeze the Constitutional Court through legislation.
Statement by the civil society organizations, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, Judicial Reform Foundation, Taiwan Association for Human Rights, and Covenants Watch, on the execution
In particular, despite its opposition by civil society groups, capital punishment is highly popular in Taiwan. Poll after poll shows that the public supports the death penalty. As such, when DPP administrations have avoided carrying out executions, the KMT has leveraged on this politically to attack the DPP, claiming that violent crimes will rise in Taiwan without the use of capital punishment as a social deterrent.
It is for this reason that DPP presidential administrations have carried out executions, then. The use of executions would be to shore up public approval, as KMT presidential administrations previously did–for example, the Ma administration carried out a series of executions in 2014 to shore up approval after its ratings took a hit in the aftermath of the Sunflower Movement. Specifically, DPP presidential administrations aim to prove through executions that capital punishment is still the law of the land in Taiwan, against the claims of the KMT.
The Tsai administration’s first execution in 2018, two years after it took office, was accused of being aimed at shoring up approval ahead of 2018 elections. The execution took place after a series of violent dismemberment incidents shocked Taiwanese society, as a result of which the Tsai administration felt the need to execute Lee Hung-chi, 39, in order to avoid appearing weak on violent crime. Similarly, when the Tsai administration conducted its second execution in April 2020, the Tsai administration was accused of attempting to shore up support during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
So, too, with the Lai administration. The execution takes place in the same timeframe as a series of controversial measures by the KMT aimed at wide-ranging cuts to government programs, which the DPP is expected to go on the offensive regarding. Likewise, the KMT has used views on capital punishment as a wedge issue, in seeking to block the Lai administration’s proposed appointments of justices to the Constitutional Court on the basis of their views on capital punishment as part of its ongoing efforts to freeze the Constitutional Court. Some DPP legislators, such as Chiayi legislator Chen Kuan-ting, have emphasized support for the execution.
Carrying out the execution at this juncture would be a means of shoring up support for the DPP before another round of hostilities with the KMT in the legislature–and proving that capital punishment is still on the books in Taiwan. Yet this continues the means by which Taiwan is at odds with international trends about the phasing out of capital punishment in favor of rehabilitative measures and by which fundamental human rights are used for political purposes by politicians, in putting individuals to death for political purposes. It will likely be a long path for capital punishment to be phased out in Taiwan.