Taiwan Church News 3250 Edition June 9 - June 15, 2014 Church Ministry News A Report Of "The Death Penalty in Taiwan" Is Published, Urging Taiwan Government To Fulfill Her Legal Obligation To Global Society Reported by Lin Yi-ying On June 5th, the Death Penalty in Taiwan: A Report on Taiwan's Legal Obligations under the International Covenant on Civiland Political Rights was published at Taipei, in association with the London-based Death Penalty Project (DPP) and Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP). Mr Saul Lehrfreund, Co-Executive Director of DPP, comes to Taipei specially for this to speaks about the significance of this report. This present report is the third death penalty report published by the DPP in Asia (the reports on the death penalty in Japanand Malaysia were published in 2013), which demonstrates that the international community attached great importance to the human rights situation in Asia and Taiwan. A press conference on “The Death Penalty in Taiwan” was held at 10:00 AM on June 5th at the National Taiwan UniversityAlumni Club, which was moderated by the Executive Director of TAEDP, Lin Hsin-yi, Saul Lehrfreund, the Co-Executive Director of the DPP, and Chang Wen-chen, Professor of the College of Law, National Taiwan University (NTU), which presented the findings of this report. Other participants included legislator Yu Mei-nu, Kao Jung-chi, the Executive Director of Judicial Reform Foundation, and Chris Wood, Director of British Trade and Cultural Office in Taiwan. Saul Lehrfreund talks it straight about Taiwan's failure to live up with her voluntary joint into two international humanright treaties:International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Internation Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights(ICESCR), as the strict procedures on the juriprudence and execution of death penalty have to be established and complied accoding to these two treaties. Yet, evidencing from 26 prisoners in death row had been executed since 2010, Taiwan is felt to drift away from the international trend, even from her own claimed standard. Chris Wood remarks that the policy of British government is to end death penalty, because this capital punishment degradeshuman dignity and cannot stop the crimes effectively. Moreover, if there is any misjudgment upon the jury of death penalty, the damages will be irrevocably tragic. Therefore, British government is disappointed to see the rising executions of death penalty in Taiwan since 2010. At the very beginning of this historical verdict on Taiwan's rising executions of death penalty, the major purpose is specified: “In a sentence, the present report suggests that Taiwan is failing to comply with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The greatest mistake that a criminal justice system can make is the wrongful execution of an innocent person." Translated by Peter Wolfe |