President Ma Ying-jeou says that for now Taiwan will keep the death penalty, but that it will use it judiciously. His comments came Monday during a press conference about two United Nations covenants that Taiwan signed into law in 2009.
The two covenants are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
President Ma said that Taiwan cannot abolish the death penalty without a consensus. Right now about 80% of the public opposes an end to the death penalty. That’s been fueled by several recent high-profile cases involving indiscriminate murders.
Ma said the law is very clear when it comes to using the death penalty. He said it must only be used for the most serious crimes, it cannot violate human rights conventions, and it must be delivered in a final verdict. He said that Taiwan’s use of the death penalty abides by all three of those prerequisites. He said that while 20 years ago, about 18 people were executed per year in Taiwan, that number has dropped to less than six per year.
The president also defended Taiwan’s use of the death penalty, saying that even though a majority of countries have abolished capital punishment, 60% of the world population still lives in a country where it exists.
President Ma said that for now, there are several reasons that make it impossible for Taiwan to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole.
“First of all, can the average person accept the fact that someone has committed such a serious crime and then the nation has to take care of that individual for his whole life? Second, there are serious concerns about prison management. […] And from the perspective of human rights, if you never let the person out of jail, it’s no less of a human rights concern than carrying out the death penalty. So from my understanding, the judiciary has not considered life imprisonment without parole as a replacement for the death penalty," said Ma.