On Friday, April 1, some time after 6 p.m., Weng Jen-hsien 翁仁賢 became the second death row inmate to be executed under the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文. Weng was convicted of starting a house fire in February 2016 that killed his parents, four other relatives and a caregiver.
On the same day as his execution, Taiwan donated seven million surgical masks to Europe. The move evoked a high-profile expression of gratitude from the European Union—rare under China’s dominion of the global political arena.
The EU, however, conveyed displeasure days later at Taiwan’s continued use of the death penalty, which international media indicated may be casting a pall over the country’s diplomatic successes during the coronavirus pandemic. The EU called on Taiwan to “refrain from any future executions, to reinstate and maintain a de facto moratorium, and to pursue a consistent policy towards the abolition of the death penalty.”
The incongruence between Taiwan’s stated policy of working gradually toward abolition and recent executions has caused NGOs to question if the current administration intends to follow through on the commitments first made by its predecessor in 2009.
In 2009, while Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九 was in power, Taiwan ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The legislature also passed an Implementation Act in the same year, enshrining the rights guaranteed by both covenants into law. While the ICCPR does not state retaining the death penalty is in breach of its stipulations, it does imply all signatory parties should be working toward abolition.
Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, having withdrawn from its seat as the ‘Republic of China’ when the UN switched its recognition of ‘China’ to Beijing in 1971. From 1993 to 2007, applications to rejoin were made, and rejected, each year—including, in 2007, an application made under the name “Taiwan.” Since 2008, efforts have been made to apply for meaningful participation rather than full membership.
Nevertheless, civic groups have campaigned for the government to resume membership bids for many years. Campaigners state that UN membership would bolster global recognition of Taiwan as a unique and independent country, and could offer more opportunities to contribute its experience of developing a successful democracy. The Tsai administration, meanwhile, has taken to advocating for Taiwan’s right to a seat at the table by matching efforts in Sustainable Development Goals and other UN initiatives.
The lack of UN membership could, however, be providing underlying advantages for those in the government that are pro-death penalty. The ICCPR has a Second Optional Protocol—which Taiwan has not signed—that states signatory parties should take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty. In May 2018, following a string of murder cases on the island, the Ministry of Justice remarked that this stipulation does not apply to Taiwan as it is not a member of the UN.
With regards to Weng’s execution, the International Federation of Human Rights, in conjunction with local activist groups Covenants Watch and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, issued a joint statement condemning the action. Amnesty International’s Taiwan division also called for an immediate end to executions.
Additionally, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (Taiwan Alliance) announced that it would be quitting the Gradual Death Penalty Abolition Promotion and Research Group, established by the Ministry of Justice in 2010 for the purpose of cooperatively working to honor the two covenants and bring an end to the death penalty. The Taiwan Alliance stated that Weng’s execution was not carried out in accordance with the rule of law. In response to this, Justice Minister Tsai Ching-hsiang 蔡清祥 asserted that he did as he must and signed off on the execution because the death penalty is still legal in Taiwan.
Speaking to Ketagalan Media, Taiwan Alliance director Lin Hsin-yi 林欣怡 expressed that Weng’s execution left her feeling betrayed by the Tsai government for the second time during its tenure. The first was in August 2018 when, 10 days before the execution of Lee Hung-chi 李宏基, Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Ming-tang 陳明堂 acknowledged problems with the laws governing execution in the Prison Act, she said. Chen requested assistance from the civil working team to amend the law.
Just over a week later, however, the Ministry of Justice used this defective law to execute Lee.
The death penalty, politics and the media
The reason Lee was killed, Lin believes, was to build public support for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the run up to the November 2018 nine-in-one elections. The Tsai administration was at the time suffering from consistently poor approval ratings which were reflected in the shakeup that saw the DPP suffering significant losses once the elections came around.
Lin Hsin-yi (right) with Chen Hsing-tse 鄭性澤, who was pardoned from death row in 2017 after being wrongfully convicted of murdering a police officer.
Although polls fluctuate depending on when they are carried out, most show the vast majority of Taiwan’s citizens are in favor of the death penalty. A recent poll published in ETToday revealed that 93 percent backed it when asked the direct question, “Do you support the retention of the death penalty in Taiwan?” Media clamor following killings in Taiwan usually further spurs support for corporal punishment, and this is something individuals on both sides of the political spectrum have latched onto in the past.
Between 2006 and 2008, when the DPP was in power, the death penalty was under an effective moratorium in Taiwan due to then-Minister of Justice Shih Mao-lin’s 施茂林 refusal to sign off on death warrants. The freeze was continued after his replacement by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Minister Wang Tsing-fong 王清峰, who also refused to sign off warrants, but she stepped down following extreme pressure from society, legal professionals and government officials, who declared executions could only be postponed if there were legally sufficient reasons. Her replacement, Tseng Yung-fu 曾勇夫, promised to carry out executions in accordance with the law, and signed four execution warrants just a month after his inauguration.
Over the course of Ma Ying-jeou’s eight-year presidential tenure, a total of 33 death row inmates were executed. Many of these came at times where local media incited rage among the public over high-profile murder cases. Six people were executed in December 2012 after protestors urged for the state-sanctioned killing of a man who murdered a 10-year-old boy in a video arcade.
In other instances, critics believe the death penalty has been used to curry favor from the public during times of political tension. The Ministry of Justice sanctioned five executions on April 29, 2014 during a wave of protests stemming from the Sunflower Movement, improper police handling during the occupation of the Legislative Yuan, and the canned Lungmen nuclear power plant. “In most instances, we’ve been able to draw links between executions and political motives,” Lin told Ketagalan Media.
Legal complications with recent executions
Ten days before the execution of Lee Hung-chi in August 2018, Lin said, Chen Ming-tang convened a meeting with the Gradual Death Penalty Abolition Promotion and Research Group. “During the meeting, we raised our belief that Lee Hung-chi had mental health issues unaccounted for,” she said. “But he refused evaluation, so no assessment was carried out.”
“The legalities over to what extent one must be mentally ill to absolve responsibility are unclear,” Lin said. “Chen acknowledged there were problems, and promised the government would work toward amending the law, but 10 days later, Lee was killed. How on earth were we supposed to come up with a legal solution within 10 days? They said they were a government that upholds the rule of law, but if you acknowledge there is a problem with the law, how can you use it to justify killing someone?”
Further complications arose prior to the execution of Weng Jen-hsien this April. Toward the end of last year, amendments to the Prison Act—which covers execution law— were made, including the addition of Article 145, which stipulates “The specific location and method of executions, alongside applicable restrictions and related procedures, must be specified by the Ministry of Justice.”
Death row inmates are currently either given a lethal injection or shot through the heart. “On a human rights ground, the latter could be considered cruel and inhumane,” Lin said. “Chen acknowledged this, and the ministry confirmed the law would be amended to determine one specific form of execution by July 2020. The amendment is still under review, yet the Minister of Justice signed off on Weng’s execution on April 1.”
“Is this really an expression of rule by law?”
Is Taiwan trying to normalize the death penalty?
Lin said that Weng’s execution was an anomaly to the Taiwan Alliance—unlike with other cases, there were no obvious political motives behind it. While the execution may have been blanketed by Taiwan’s diplomatic outreach to Europe, most of the government’s functioning bodies have been focused on combating the coronavirus pandemic over recent months.
“It seems like only the Ministry of Justice was concerned with Weng’s execution,” Lin said.
She noted that both Lee and Weng had one thing in common, separating them from the other 39 inmates on death row. “Whenever an individual is given the death penalty, they have the opportunity to request amnesty, a retrial, an extraordinary appeal, a constitutional review—these four things. Neither Lee nor Weng sought any of them; all our other defendants have. For this reason, they were the easiest two to take out.”
Lin noted that there was particular secrecy surrounding Weng’s execution. “Usually, the Ministry will notify the media in the afternoon to say a press conference will be happening in the evening following an execution. This time around they put out no notification.”
Lin speculated that this was to prevent her team rushing to the scene and lawyers scrambling to file an extraordinary appeal.
“I only found out about Weng’s execution after reporters covering the beat heard rumors from security staff at the prison,” she said. “I called Chen Ming-tang’s office to ask what was going on at around 7 p.m., and his secretary said he wasn’t in the office. That is when I knew it had happened.”
Lin believes Tsai, the justice minister, is not, despite his claims, in favor of gradually abolishing the death penalty, and has no interest in working toward honoring Taiwan’s commitments to the two human rights covenants. “These are my personal thoughts,” she said, “but he wants to prove himself as the Minister of Justice. He wants to show his boss, ‘I can do it!’”
His “boss,” Premier Su Tseng-chang 蘇貞昌, said in October last year that all death sentences in which no further appeals are possible should be enforced, stating that he “never protects bad guys.”
“We have accused Minister Tsai of sanctioning executions for political purposes in the past,” Lin said, “so we believe he may have used Weng’s execution to prove us wrong. But you should not be able to kill someone just because it is in the law; the government needs to exercise control and restrain its power. What Tsai has done is disturbing.”
Members of Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty at the 7th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Brussels, Belgium, February 2019.
Beyond Weng’s execution
Lin said she felt the Ministry of Justice’s goals are no longer the same as hers, and that its work with the gradual abolition team has been a fig leaf for times when Taiwan’s human rights record is brought into question.
“From now on, we need to reconsider our tactics,” she said. “There is no use for the cooperative research group anymore.”
Whether Taiwan will abolish the death penalty any time soon is still up in the air.
“Successive governments from both camps have seen it as a low-priority issue that can carry a high political cost,” Andrea Giorgetta, head of the International Federation of Human Rights Asia Desk, told Ketagalan Media. “They have been content with retaining the death penalty to please domestic audiences, and keeping the number of executions low to avoid international criticism.”
Weng’s execution does, however, come at a juncture where Taiwan is unusually hitting headlines across the world for all the right reasons. Its successes in handling the coronavirus pandemic have led the country to be viewed as a model for emulation across the world and have induced talks of bilateral cooperation with multiple nations. As Taiwan exports its soft power with unbridled success, it is yet to be seen whether its stance on the death penalty will have any repercussions, or whether outside pressure will force it firmly down the road to abolition.
(All photos courtesy of Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty)
