Taiwan’s Constitutional Court has determined that the death penalty is conditionally constitutional, a verdict that was reached and announced this Friday following a petition filed by 37 death row inmates.
The court’s latest constitutional ruling considers the death penalty the most severe of criminal penalties and stipulates that strict requirements must be met. As it has remained, conditions such as a unanimous decision by the Ministry of Justice, Supreme Prosecutors Office, and High Prosecutors Office, and absence of mental disorders at the time of the crime must be met in accordance with the Justice Ministry’s Regulations for Executing the Death Penalty.
The prisoners who filed the petition to review the death penalty had exhausted the appeals process and maintained that the death penalty violates their constitutional rights of equality, proportionality, and existence.
There are currently 50 crimes punishable by death, including treason, espionage, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, rape, murder, serious cases of kidnapping, and more. However, all of the nearly 80 executions carried out since the early 2000s have been due to murder charges and only six inmates have had their death sentences carried out within the past ten years.
Of the three potential outcomes including constitutional, unconstitutional, and conditionally constitutional, the court settled on the most middle ground. The Constitutional Court has issued three rulings concerning the death penalty; each decided to retain the punishment.
Article written by Tristan Hilderbrand
