Open letter to the Minister of Justice of Taiwan

Open letter to the Minister of Justice of Taiwan

Mr. Tseng Yung-fu

Paris-Taipei, 26 March 2010

Re: The death penalty in Taiwan

Excellency,

We are writing to you further to your statement of March 22, quoted in the Central News Agency, regarding the application of the death penalty in Taiwan.

We welcome the fact that you ordered a review of the cases of the 44 prisoners on death row in Taiwan, which in practice provides more time for in-depth thinking about further steps. We also appreciate last year's extremely important measures by the government of Taiwan towards the restriction of the use of capital punishment and further progress in the field of human rights. This includes the ratification of the two UN Covenants, respectively on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights, in April 2009. The establishment by your predecessor of a Task Force on research and promotion of gradual abolishment in the Ministry of Justice, bringing together academics, NGOs, lawyers and other stakeholders to propose alternative measures to replace the death penalty is equally important. This Task Force reportedly held its first meeting earlier this week, and we strongly believe that this initiative should be continued, with a precise workplan and timeframe. Raising awareness among the people of Taiwan on the strong arguments against the death penalty, and the available alternative measures, should be an integral part of the Task Force's mandate. Awareness raising among magistrates and the judiciary also appears crucial.

We are quite aware that the issue of the death penalty triggers heated debate in the Taiwanese public opinion, and understand that abolishment will be a gradual process. We also welcome the fact that you were quoted as saying that "The option of abolishing is still open".

We would like, in this context, to draw your attention on the petition filed by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) to the Grand Justices for constitutional review on behalf of 14 death row prisoners regarding the lack of legal representation in the third trial(the Supreme Court). TAEDP filed a second petition to the Grand Justices on March 11, 2010, requesting a stay on execution of all 44 death row prisoners while the above-mentioned constitutional review is still pending. In that regard, we urge you to guarantee that no execution will take place before the Grand Justices will rule on this petition, since this would be a clear breach of international human rights standards relating to the death penalty, which impose that all remedies must have been exhausted before any execution can take place. http://www.tahr.org.tw/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=789 Last but not least, we believe that certain legislative amendments should be proposed by your government as a matter of urgency, in order to strengthen the procedural safeguards relating to the death penalty in Taiwan. This includes the fact that capital punishment should be decided unanimously by the court ; the public hearing and verbal debates of the two parties should be held at the level of the Supreme Court; and the legal representation of people convicted to the death sentence should be compulsory at every trial.

We sincerely hope that you will take our suggestions into due account, and remain fully available for any further discussion on this key issue.

Yours sincerely

Souhayr Belhassen President of Fédération Internationale des ligues des Droits de l'Homme and Lin Chia-Fan Chairperson of Taiwan Association for Human Rights