Taiwan.

Asia (Eastern Asia).

Mandarin Chinese.

23,000,000 (Dec. 2011).

Retentionist.

2025.

Lethal Injection.

Executions can be carried out by lethal injection.

Shooting.

Executions can be carried out by gunshot at close range with a single gun.

The condemned lies face down on a mattress on the floor and a medical practitioner marks where his heart is. The prisoner is shot from behind three times at close range. For an inmate who has agreed to allow organ harvesting, the condemned lies in a plastic bath and is killed by a pistol shot to the back of the head. Inmates are sedated prior to execution.

Comments.

According to Article 3 of the Ministry of Justice’s Regulations for Carrying out Executions, executions shall be carried out by gunshot or lethal injection. In practice, however, all executions are carried out by gunshot, with a single gun fired at close range at the inmate’s heart from behind. For prisoners who have agreed to donate organs, the gun is aimed at the back of the head. Families are not informed about scheduled executions in advance; they learn about the executions afterwards, when they are invited to collect the body.

At the end of 2020, 49 people were on death row.

(This question was last updated on December 1, 2021.).

No.

The constitution does not explicitly make reference to capital punishment, although Article 22 protects all freedoms and rights insofar as they are not detrimental to the social order or public welfare, which can be interpreted as protecting the right to life, due process, equality and proportionality. The Constitutional Court has interpreted Article 15 of the Constitution to expressly guarantee the right to life, which may only be infringed in accordance with the principle of proportionality. The Constitution has been considered neutral on the death penalty.

Aggravated Murder.

Under the Criminal Code, a person who commits specified sexual offenses and intentionally kills the victim, commits robbery or piracy and intentionally kills another, or kidnaps another to extort ransom and intentionally kills the victim may be punished by death.

In addition, the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act prescribes death or life imprisonment for the sexual assault of a person under age 18 when the person is intentionally killed.

Murder.

Under the Criminal Code, a person who “takes the life of another” may be punished by death. A person who “takes the life of his lineal blood ascendant” may be sentenced to death.

Other Offenses Resulting in Death.

Under an Act applicable to civilians who try to avoid recruitment or mobilization in military service, carrying weapons “by group” and obstructing a military service or fighting publicly against a military service, causing the death of a person, is punishable by death.

Drug Trafficking Not Resulting in Death.

Treason.

Under the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act, manufacturing, transporting, or selling category one narcotics are subject to death or a life sentence. In addition, compelling others to use category one narcotics is punishable by death. A public official who commits the above offenses under the pretense of his or her authority may be punished by death. Likewise, under the Criminal Code, “[a] public official who uses his authority to compel another person” to cultivate, sell, or transport poppy, opium, or morphine is punishable by death.

Military Offenses Not Resulting in Death.

War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide.

Under the Criminal Code, the following offences are categorized as treason and punishable by death: colluding with a foreign state with intent that such state or other state start war against China; colluding with a foreign state with intent to subject China to other state; serving in the armed forces of an enemy or joining the enemy’s fight against China or its allies.

Additionally, aiding the enemy or causing injury to the military interests of China or its allies, during a war or while a war is about to start, can be punishable by death under the following circumstances: surrendering to an enemy or surrendering, destroying, damaging, or rendering useless military sights, materials, or infrastructure; recruiting for an enemy or inducing a person in the armed services to surrender to the enemy; inciting a person in the armed services to neglect his/her duty, desert, mutiny, or commit a breach of discipline; disclosing or delivering strategic information of secret nature; or committing an act of espionage for an enemy.

Comments.

Under the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces, theft and sale of ammunition, treasonable offenses and espionage, failure to resist the enemy, aiding the enemy, disclosing secrets to the enemy, failure to safeguard some kinds of information, initiating aggressive hostilities (as a commander), dereliction of duty, disobedience, or insubordination during time of war, taking arms and leaving “position of service,” theft of vessels or aircraft, destruction of facilities, vessels or aircraft.

Espionage.

.

Other Offenses Resulting in Death.

A 2019 report by the Death Penalty Project states that more than 50 legislative provisions provide for the death penalty, but some of them do not meet the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ threshold of the “most serious crimes.” The laws under which the death penalty is provided are the Criminal Code, the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces, the Punishment of Smuggling Act, the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act, the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Act, the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act, the Controlling Guns, Ammunition, and Knives Act, the Act Governing the Punishment of Offences Against Military Service, and the Civil Aviation Act.

In practice the death penalty only applies for homicide offenses; the last known death sentence resulting in execution for a drug crime was handed down in 2002, and although lower courts have since sentenced people to death for drug crimes, these sentences have been overturned by the Supreme Court.

In March 2011, Taiwan's government approved revisions of four statutes aimed at abolishing the death penalty for some crimes—including kidnapping not resulting in death, gun-running, obstruction of military service not resulting in death and counterfeiting of banknotes—in a move seen as an attempt to ease criticism from international human rights groups and the European Union after the executions that had taken place some days before. In May 2011, the legislature amended the Punishment Act for Violation to Military Service System, removing capital punishment as an option for those who carry weapons in a group and seriously hurt a person while trying to obstruct individuals from performing their military service (the maximum sentence will be imprisonment for life). In 2014, the legislature passed bills abolishing the death penalty for kidnapping and for kidnapping resulting in aggravated injury.

In 2006, the death penalty was mandatory for three offenses. “Defiance of orders (Article 27)” and “false reporting during wartime causing detrimental results (Article 66)” carried the mandatory death penalty under the Criminal Code of the Armed Forces, and causing major financial disturbance or counterfeiting carried the mandatory death penalty under Article 3(2) of the Statute Governing the Punishment for Damaging National Currency. Before 2006, the Constitutional Court had ruled that the mandatory death penalty could be unconstitutional if the judge is not permitted to reduce the sentence according to the circumstances. Although this could be interpreted as a ruling that legislators may set presumptive, though not mandatory, penalties, in-country experts still assessed this as a mandatory death penalty. (Precisely speaking, Interpretation 263 (1990) held that any provision for a mandatory death penalty would have to pass a proportionality test.) Clearing up the issue, by 2006 the mandatory death penalty was abolished. (Elimination of the mandatory death penalty was through legislative amendments, mostly between 2002 and 2006.).

Comments.

The mandatory death penalty no longer exists since 2006.

Individuals Below Age 18 at Time of Crime.

The death penalty for individuals below age 18 at the time of the crime was completely abolished by 2005, and the ICCPR (which also provides for this exclusion) was legislatively adopted in 2009.

Pregnant Women.

The ICCPR, legislatively adopted in 2009, prohibits the execution of pregnant women. Prior to 2009, there was no clear legal exclusion and pregnancy tests were not administered, although general practice suggested at least women in late-term pregnancy would not be executed. In practice, pregnant women were not sentenced to death, although this exclusion was not required by law prior to the adoption of the ICCPR."

Women With Small Children.

Women cannot be executed until “some time” after giving birth, but this might be for only a very limited period (according to a local source interviewed by FIDH and TAEDP, pregnant women are provisionally released from prison around the fifth month of their pregnancy and for a period of two months after giving birth).

Mentally Ill.

According to the government, although the law does not prohibit the execution of mentally ill individuals, such executions are not carried out in practice. However, it is not clear that this exclusion is always adhered to. Mental soundness is assessed “immediately prior” to execution, mental health management is inadequate, and at least some experts conclude that it is unlikely that fair assessments are made prior to execution. One expert concludes that there is no exclusion for mentally ill prisoners. There is also an exclusion from or reduction of criminal liability for individuals who were mentally ill at the time of their offense, although for an exclusion a defendant may have to prove a pre-existing condition.

Elderly.

By law, individuals over age 80 are not subject to capital punishment.

Aggravated Murder.

Among the five inmates executed in March 2011, one was executed for a multiple murder (seven victims).

Among the six inmates executed in December 2012, at least one had been convicted of a multiple murder according to a government statement. One of the inmates, Chen Chin­huo, was convicted of murdering a woman and cooking her flesh.

Among the six inmates executed in April 2013, at least four had been convicted of multiple murders, many of which involved other crimes, including one man who killed five family members for insurance payments, two were convicted of a shoot-out in a tea-house that resulted in three deaths, and one man who murdered a couple after breaking into and robbing their residence. The two remaining inmates committed arson which resulted in multiple deaths, but we were unable to ascertain from the media reports whether these were homicides committed with intent to kill.

Murder.

There were four executions in 2010; in-country experts classify the underlying offenses as murder or other offenses resulting in death. Reuters reports that those executions were of four men who were connected to a murder.

Among the six inmates executed in December 2012, at least one was convicted of a fatal kidnapping according to a government statement. Other offenses included killing a home owner during a burglary, and setting a fire which killed an in-law and three children.

Other Offenses Resulting in Death.

There were four executions in 2010; in-country experts classify the underlying offenses as murder or other offenses resulting in death. Reuters reports that those executions were of four men who were connected to a murder.

Among the five inmates executed in March 2011, one was executed for arson resulting in death.

Among the six inmates executed in December 2012, at least one was convicted of a fatal kidnapping according to a government statement. Other offenses included killing a home owner during a burglary, and setting a fire which killed an in-law and three children.

Two inmates executed in April 2013 committed arson which resulted in multiple deaths, but we were unable to ascertain from the media reports whether these were homicides committed with intent to kill.

Comments.

In a report dated April 2012, the government noted that between 2006 and 2011, the Supreme Court had finalized the death penalty in 47 cases, all of which involved the death of at least one victim.

The Constitutional Court has decided some important cases, although it has consistently ruled that the death penalty is not unconstitutional. For instance, in Interpretation No. 476 (1999), the Court determined that Article 15 of the Constitution protects the right to life and requires a proportionality test if the state is to exercise the death penalty, but ultimately decided that the state’s interest in preventing drug trafficking was important enough that the discretionary death penalty was a proportional response against individuals who purchase drugs for their personal use. Even though Interpretation No. 263 (1990) is now somewhat obsolete (the mandatory death penalty having been abolished legislatively), this decision does emphasize the importance of discretionary sentencing and that any mandatory penalty would have to pass a proportionality test. Interpretation 194 (1985), permitting the mandatory death penalty for grave offenses against the state (such as drug trafficking during a time of rebellion), may no longer be influential. In Interpretation 582 (2004), the Court determined an important evidentiary case. It struck down precedent which allowed the confession of one criminal co-defendant to be submitted as evidence against the other co-defendant. The Court reasoned that testimony of co-defendants against each other must be subject to cross examination. The Court also stated that statements of co-defendants against each other could not be admitted as evidence even where the co-defendants had been given the opportunity to ask questions of each other in a previous court proceeding. In Interpretation 551 (2002), the Court indirectly struck down the death penalty for false accusation of a capital drug crime. Previously, the drug law had allowed the court to sentence a false accuser of a drug offense to the penalty the accused would have faced. The Court found that this is disproportionate—that the penalty does not fit the crime. This is the only time the Court has found a provision related to the death penalty to be unconstitutional, and it may be important because the Court has implied that the death penalty must be proportionate to the crime, and that this can be a subject for judicial determination. In December 2006, the Court declared inadmissible a petition which argued that the death penalty was a violation of the constitutional rights to equality and to life, asserting that no further explanations were required after Interpretations Nos. 194, 263 and 476. In May 2010, after executions resumed after a 4-year hiatus, the Constitutional Court rejected a petition, filed by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty on behalf of the 44 inmates who remained on death row, to stay their executions. The Court said that defendants are given the opportunity to defend and express themselves during the process, and that their executions violated neither the Constitution nor the two United Nations covenants that Taiwan has signed and passed into law.

In a decision whose reference we could not locate, but which was cited in a government human rights report from April 2012, the Supreme Court described the conditions under which a death sentence was appropriate: “The death penalty can only be imposed if the offender shows no regret and has a clear disregard for the value of human life, which cannot be corrected through other forms of education and sentences, and if the committed crime is beyond pardon and it is deemed necessary that the offender is permanently isolated from society. In addition, consideration should be given to the principle of fairness and the need for social justice, to maintain national security, public order and good social customs, and protect the public interest, as well as the subjective intention behind the offense and the objective facts of the crime. The reasons for which the death penalty is imposed must be described in detail. The verdict must leave no doubt regarding the guilt of the defendant and the thoroughness of the trial procedures.” However, there are no formal sentencing guidelines for application of the death penalty.

No.

Not applicable. Taiwan is not a member nation of the U.N.

However, in 2009, the legislature adopted the ICCPR (as interpreted by the Human Rights Committee) as domestic law in Taiwan, effective December 10 of that year.

In April 2012, the government issued a lengthy human rights report to investigate its implementation of the ICCPR, and invited a panel of international experts to examine its report. The report stated that the government’s goal was the gradual elimination of the death penalty, and noted that the following measures had been taken to reduce the number of death sentences: (1) abolition of the mandatory death penalty; (2) exclusion of minors from the death penalty; (3) increasing parole thresholds for repeat offenders imprisoned for life, so that judges are more willing to order a life sentence; and (4) advising prosecutors not to request a death sentence. According to this report, the ministry of justice is also considering requiring that a death sentence be decided unanimously. The ministry has also proposed amending Article 289 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to create a bifurcated system in which a separate sentencing hearing focuses on mitigating circumstances before a death sentence is issued. In a Shadow Report issued in response to the 2012 government report, a collective of non-profit organizations criticized the lack of concrete proposals for abolition or for dealing with institutional shortcomings which place Taiwan in breach of the Covenant. The Shadow Report underlined that the government had taken no concrete steps to repeal the death penalty for crimes not involving the use of force (such as economic crimes); emphasized that the right to apply for a pardon or commutation has repeatedly been obstructed; and noted that in several cases where serious shortcomings in the investigation and trial had led to wrongful convictions, the government had not proposed any structural reform and had declined to hold officials accountable for torture and other abuses of power. The Shadow Report also deplored that death-sentenced prisoners had no right to be represented by counsel at the highest level of appeal before the Supreme Court. Finally, the Shadow Report found that there was insufficient implementation of the prohibition on executing mentally ill or intellectually disabled prisoners, in particular because of undefined standards and expert assessment procedures, and lack of training for judges on mental health issues.

Taiwan is not a member nation of the U.N.

Courts are required to appoint counsel after an indictment is filed. At the first two stages of review (District Court and High Court), but not at the Supreme Court, the defendant must have legal counsel and has a right to a public defender or lawyer. At the Supreme Court, the defendant may have a lawyer if he can afford one, but many death row inmates in the past did not have lawyers as they could not afford it. In 2010, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty found that 27 of 44 inmates at imminent risk of execution had not had legal representation at the Supreme Court. TAEDP has argued that this violates the ICCPR (adopted as domestic law in Taiwan). In recent years the Legal Aid Foundation has stepped in to offer pro bono lawyers at the Supreme Court, but this does not help people whose cases are already finalized.

In the High Court, the defendant has a right to counsel. Death row inmates do not have a legal right to free counsel at the Supreme Court or for extraordinary review such as post-confirmation cassation by the Supreme Court, but in recent years, pro bono lawyers from the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty offer free legal counsel to all death row inmates. In April 2012, a government report stated that the Judicial Yuan (ministry of justice) was planning legislative amendments to adopt mandatory legal representation before the Supreme Court.

The quality of legal representation is very poor, as might be anticipated given that a great many of the individuals under a final sentence of death are indigent persons who received the assistance of public defenders or appointed counsel. Most defendants facing the death penalty are assigned a local public defender or lawyer who very often has no experience with death penalty cases and may even lack expertise in criminal law. There is no credential system for determining who is qualified to take up a death penalty case. The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty is trying to improve this by offering training for lawyers. Other sources confirm this; a Taiwanese attorney described the public defender system as “weak,” a system the government was seeking to abandon, and which is seen by some as fulfilling a mere formality—the work that public defenders do is “meaningless.” Many private firms do not allow attorneys to take pro bono work (which is actually paid work through legal aid). This attorney’s firm, however, did, and in his experience with “pro bono” work and court-appointed work he found that only high-profile cases were likely to involve co-counsel.

An interview with a staff attorney for Legal Aid corroborates and adds to some of these details. Defendants usually have only one attorney, but may be assigned up to three, there are no standards for which lawyers can defend a capital case, and lawyers appointed by the Legal Aid Foundation (which is overseen by the judiciary) receive about a third of what they could get in the private market. Counsel for indigent defendants usually do not have the resources to obtain experts. Notably, because new legal arguments can be brought without regard to whether they were argued or issues were preserved in lower courts, incompetent representation at the trial stage can be somewhat mitigated. However, after the Supreme Court has confirmed a death sentence, the defense must sometimes rely on the prosecutor’s cooperation in seeking an extraordinary appeal, and Ministry of Justice regulations and policy can restrict the time in which an individual has access to another appeal.

Any case in which the defendant faces a death sentence undergoes three stages: the District Court, High Court, and Supreme Court. The Supreme Court makes the final ruling, after which a person is at imminent risk of execution. According to a staff attorney with Taiwan’s Legal Aid Foundation, the appellate process can take quite some time. Cases typically “bounce back and forth between the SC and HC, where the SC remands the case to the HC for review (multiple times) before confirming the sentence.” In fact, this process may continue for a decade or more as both the prosecution and defense continue to file an unlimited number of appeals. A draft law titled the Fair and Speedy Criminal Trials Act has been proposed in order to limit the number of times an individual found innocent (at any stage of the review process) will have to face an appeal by the prosecution (note that this law may diminish innocent defendant’s rights under the Compensation for Miscarriages of Justice Act).

Extraordinary remedies are possible: The prosecutor-general may apply to the courts on the defendant’s behalf for an extraordinary appeal; or, if there is new evidence in the case, the defendant may apply for a High Court retrial. An extraordinary appeal to the Supreme Court is on questions of law. There is no limit to the number of times the defendant can request a new trial, and the defendant can continue to offer new legal arguments. Ministry of Justice procedures are significant in determining a defendant’s access to these remedies. Finally, an individual can petition the Constitutional Court after all judicial remedies have been exhausted.

Based on sources pre-dating 2001, including during the peak execution years of Taiwan’s democratic period, Johnson & Zimring cite a report that gave the average time to a Supreme Court verdict as 2.8 years, with 80% of capital cases taking less than three years, and only three percent of cases taking ten or more years. Until recently, therefore, adjudication was swift for most and lengthy in a minority of cases. However, in a report issued in April 2012, the government stated that the average length of death penalty cases was now 5.8 years, with “some cases” taking up to 20 years to reach final adjudication. It should also be observed that the time for seeking extraordinary remedies probably increased substantially after 1999.

Article 40 of the Constitution empowers the President to grant amnesty, individually or generally, without the need for specific legislation. Under Taiwan’s Amnesty Act, “anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to apply for a pardon or commutation.” Yet the Act does not stipulate any procedures for seeking a pardon or commutation.

In 2010, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty aided 44 death row inmates in applying to the president for commutations. As of March 2011, none of the inmates or their lawyers had received any response concerning the applications, and nine had been executed. More specifically, the Minister of Justice signed death warrants (and executions were carried out) while it appeared that mercy petitions might have been pending before the President. There is a lack of transparency about the clemency process, which can terminate in an execution with little warning. Under the Amnesty Act, clemency “is an exclusive privilege exercised by the President unilaterally…the President is not obligated to reply to the request of an offender for amnesty…no amnesty has been exercised to [sic] death sentences in Taiwan.” In response to challenges to the Amnesty Act under the ICCPR, the Constitutional Court has refrained from deciding the question, because as provided by the law adopting the ICCPR the government had 2 years (from December 2009) to amend any laws that did not meet the requirements of the ICCPR.

No, Taiwan has no juries.

According to local experts, a number of persons on death row are believed to have mental illnesses that should be taken into account in their sentences. Even though mental health evaluations are performed, the procedure is not lengthy and courts do not trust independent experts. The mental health of prisoners facing imminent executions may not be competently or thoroughly assessed.

Attorneys are allowed to undertake their own investigations, and do, and they have limited access to hostile witnesses.

Trials are not bifurcated—they are not split into guilt and sentencing stages. Thus, defense counsel’s closing remarks may focus on innocence and also present mitigating factors. Perhaps because of this, one attorney we interviewed typically felt it was necessary to get a sense of the judge’s attitude in a case and then focus on an innocence claim or basically give up the issue of innocence and focus on mitigation. Judges have a great deal of discretion in sentencing and are responsive to statistics-based arguments (observations about typical sentences) about the appropriate sentence. However, the concept of mitigation is not always well-understood by judges. Defense attorneys are required to visit the victim’s family in murder cases, and the opinions of a victim’s family (or acceptance of compensation) can be very influential at sentencing during a trial or retrial.

Alongside problems with the competency of counsel and lack of resources to hire experts for indigent defendants, some corruption in the judiciary is reported, and there are significant police abuses in the investigative process. Officers who cannot obtain evidence or a confession may simply beat or torture a suspect until he gives one. Among defense attorneys, it is commonly recognized that police may not be trustworthy during interrogations. It is common practice for a defense attorney to position herself so as to be able to monitor whether a police investigator is creating an accurate record of a session. There is no guarantee that counsel will be present for an interrogation, and officers exploit this situation. One Taiwanese lawyer informed us that (in the case of court-ordered detention prior to trial) a defendant’s conversations with counsel are recorded by an employee of the detainment center, which constrains the nature of information that may be openly shared between counsel and their clients. Courts may order detention beyond the normal period if police are unable to accumulate the evidence they need; one attorney believes this is sometimes because it is feared that the defendant may interfere with evidence-gathering by the police.

Taiwan’s appellate rules theoretically diminish the chances that incompetent representation at an early trial stage will completely undermine the defendant’s right to a fair trial—the defense may appeal endlessly, bringing new legal arguments or requesting new trials. However, the reality is that defendants are not guaranteed representation at the Supreme Court where their conviction and sentence is finalized, and in 2010 individuals who were unrepresented at that stage were executed after the Court confirmed their death sentences. The prosecution’s cooperation is sometimes necessary to file an appeal after the Supreme Court has finalized a death sentence, and Ministry of Justice regulations and policy can control access to such appeals. At least one of the defendants had already submitted a request for another review by the Court, and all of the defendants were executed prior to the deadline for submitting an additional appeal—and this violated Ministry of Justice regulations. All of the individuals who were executed in 2010 had petitioned for clemency and were executed without receiving a response. So, despite the theoretical possibility of endless appeals, and regulations to assure the right to appeal, the fact is that prisoners may be abruptly executed, their latest appeals and mercy petitions ignored—ultimately the prosecution and Ministry of Justice policy controls access to extraordinary appeals.

Prosecutors may appeal endlessly against High Court rulings that are beneficial to the plaintiff (and defendants may appeal against decisions that do not favor them), and the result is a “judicial ping-pong” between the Supreme Court and High Court—a phenomenon so prevalent that it has earned a label (“shangchong xiaxi”) among legal circles. Individuals can remain in legal limbo for a decade or more. One factor in this phenomenon is that there is pressure among the prosecution to convict since a person who is found innocent may be eligible for compensation under the Miscarriage of Justice Act. A proposed law (the Fair and Speedy Criminal Trials Act) would require that a case be dismissed with no finding of innocence or guilt after the case has lasted for a decade or there have been multiple findings of innocence. This approach would effectively deny innocent people their right to compensation under Taiwanese law.

The fact that prosecutors can appeal endlessly against non-final decisions can be viewed in light of general facts about the process of criminal justice in Taiwan, especially the fact that the Ministry of Justice is very influential in determining access to post-confirmation proceedings. Johnson & Zimring suggest that (at least pre-2000) some capital defendants received very speedy process in a system that did not fully recognize defendant’s rights, with their sentences confirmed in less than three years, while others were subjected to lengthy procedures lasting a decade or more. This resulted in potential error from undue speed as well as from “instability and uncertainty” in a drawn-out appellate process. Whether a defendant is convicted to death quickly or after a lengthy process, the time and procedure for obtaining a judicial remedy for error is somewhat controlled by Ministry of Justice regulations. Although the MOJ instituted regulations (in 1999) to slow the process of executions, allowing more time to remedy error, even today the MOJ might not always comply with its own regulations. This introduces an element of arbitrariness into the criminal justice system, because the MOJ can simply determine that a prisoner has had enough process, and kill him.

Death-sentenced prisoners are kept in detention centers (which are otherwise only for people being detained while their trials proceed) rather than prisons. The reason is that, traditionally, death row inmates were executed soon after their last trial finished, so the government felt there was no need to move them to prisons. The detention centers are in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Hualien.

Death-sentenced prisoners are kept in cells with two people per room. They have 30 minutes per day to go outside and exercise. The rest of the time they stay in their cells unless they have a visitor or other special reason. Until 2011, death row inmates were allowed one visit per day between Monday and Friday. After 2011, the regulations were changed to restrict visits to one per week. A visit is a maximum of 20 minutes long.

Except for “moralization” sessions, meetings with visitors, medical visits or other special occasions, death row inmates spend most of time in their cells. According to a government report, their rights are generally the same as those of other inmates.

In the past, death row inmates whose sentences were confirmed by the Supreme Court were sometimes kept shackled, hand and foot, for lengthy periods. As of 2006, inmates who were considered suicide risks (we do not know about others) were kept shackled 24 hours a day, and “[a] former prisoner told the mission that prison staff are happy when a prisoner goes ‘quietly insane’ as it lessens the burden of prisoner management.” A staff attorney for Taiwan’s Legal Aid Foundation explains that the practice of shackling prisoners 24 hours a day is no longer in effect. He explained that prisoners do not receive any educational or occupational training and are not permitted to work. They receive three meals a day and can receive food from relatives. They are permitted to have a small TV, newspapers, and books.

Death row prisoners with finalized death sentences are subject to “demarcated custody,” which imposes stricter restrictions on the prisoner’s rights of correspondence and visitation.

By the end of our research, we had found no reports of foreign nationals under sentence of death.

By the end of our research, we had found no reports of foreign nationals under sentence of death.

At the end of 2020, two women were known to be on death row.

(This question was updated on November 30, 2021.).

No.

It is possible that ethnicity is a factor, but there are no public statistics to investigate this. Nevertheless, a government report dated April 2012 noted that of the 55 people with finalized death sentences at the end of 2011, “none belonged to minority groups.”

The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty has complied statistics on the relationship between social and economic status and the application of the death penalty. Predominantly, individuals who have been executed in Taiwan have had little education, and many were laborers or unemployed. This holds true for those who were waiting to be executed as of 2010. More than half of these individuals had public defenders or lawyers assigned by the Legal Aid Foundation, and more than half had no representation at the stage when their death sentences were confirmed by the Supreme Court.

After its transition to democracy, Taiwan’s rate of executions increased and then decreased from 1987-2007, with a peak point in the 1990s. Scholars speculate that the increase simply reflected greater transparency (previously, executions were sometimes secret) rather than an actual increase in executions. Executions declined from 2000-2003 amid some ongoing problems with violent crime, and ceased entirely by 2006. There was a four-year hiatus in executions between 2006 and 2010, but executions resumed in 2010, after a Minister of Justice who refused to go forward with executions was pressured to resign. In 2011, fifteen death sentences were issued, the highest number in the previous decade. Also, since 2006, no crimes carry the mandatory death penalty.

Johnson & Zimring observe that after a number of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law (especially amendments recognizing the presumption of innocence and right to an attorney), the number of death sentences sought by prosecutors and imposed by courts has declined. Additionally, after complaints in 1998 that defendants were being executed while appeals were still in progress or without notification to counsel, the Ministry of Justice instituted some reforms (in 1999) –the “Guidelines for Reviewing Death Sentence Execution” – to slow down the process of execution after confirmation of the sentence by the Supreme Court. There have been recent complaints, however, that the Ministry of Justice does not always follow the procedures instituted in 1999.

In 2009, the legislature adopted the ICCPR (as interpreted by the Human Rights Committee) as domestic law in Taiwan, effective December 10 of that year. This could affect whether the death penalty is applied for offenses such as drug trafficking. More importantly, it could require more transparent clemency procedures. While human rights activists argue that fundamental rights protections under the ICCPR should apply immediately (whether or not the laws have been amended), the Constitutional Court has differed with that position regarding clemency, while reserving judgment on whether Taiwan’s Amnesty Act would pass muster if it were challenged in the future (under the law adopting the ICCPR, Taiwan had 2 years to amend its laws to comply with the ICCPR).

Also in 2009, the Ministry of Justice formed the Research and Implementation Group on Gradual Abolishment of Death Penalty, but the group was unsuccessful in proposing acceptable alternatives to the death penalty.

In April 2012, the government issued a lengthy human rights report to investigate its implementation of the ICCPR, and invited a panel of international experts to examine its report. The report stated that the government’s goal was the gradual elimination of the death penalty, and noted that the following measures had been taken to reduce the number of death sentences: (1) abolition of the mandatory death penalty; (2) exclusion of minors from the death penalty; (3) increasing parole thresholds for repeat offenders imprisoned for life, so that judges are more willing to order a life sentence; and (4) advising prosecutors not to request a death sentence. According to this report, the ministry of justice is also considering requiring that a death sentence be decided unanimously. The ministry has also proposed amending Article 289 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to create a bifurcated system in which a separate sentencing hearing focuses on mitigating circumstances before a death sentence is issued. Despite the report’s avowed goal of gradually eliminating capital punishment, in December 2012 Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin told the Taipei Times that the government had “never made such a promise.” He added: “We have been very cautious about the issue, Over the years, the number of death sentences imposed has fallen, and so has the number of death row inmates executed.” The current official policy seems to be to minimize the number of death sentences (for instance, by advising prosecutors to refrain from recommending the death penalty), rather than abolish it, out of consideration for public opinion, which is favorable to the death penalty. The government carried out six further executions in April 2013.

In a Shadow Report issued in response to the 2012 government report, a collective of non-profit organizations criticized the lack of concrete proposals for abolition or for dealing with institutional shortcomings which place Taiwan in breach of the Covenant. The Shadow Report underlined that the government had taken no concrete steps to repeal the death penalty for crimes not involving the use of force (such as economic crimes); emphasized that the right to apply for a pardon or commutation has repeatedly been obstructed; and noted that in several cases where serious shortcomings in the investigation and trial had led to wrongful convictions, the government had not proposed any structural reform and had declined to hold officials accountable for torture and other abuses of power. The Shadow Report also deplored that death-sentenced prisoners had no right to be represented by counsel at the highest level of appeal before the Supreme Court. Finally, the Shadow Report found that there was insufficient implementation of the prohibition on executing mentally ill or intellectually disabled prisoners, in particular because of undefined standards and expert assessment procedures, and lack of training for judges on mental health issues.

A recent trend in sentencing is that individuals sentenced to death for drug offenses may be unlikely to be executed. By the end of 2010, there were no individuals under a final sentence of death for drug offenses (confirmed by the Supreme Court), although there were individuals who had been sentenced to death at their first or second trials. In practice, the death penalty is used only for homicide, although there have been death sentences pronounced in the last decade for non-lethal offenses.

In April 2012, Taiwan’s high court quashed the death sentences of three men sentenced for murder 21 years ago. There are serious allegations that they were tortured into confessing. Amnesty notes that “serious fair trial concerns continued to mark the use of the death penalty” in 2012. In April 2013, Taiwan’s government agreed to pay the trio compensation for their wrongful convictions.

Since December 2012, all death penalty cases before the Supreme Court must include oral arguments on sentencing by both the prosecution and the defense, and the court will consider the position of the victims’ families.

There have been interesting developments and investigations into public opinion on the death penalty in Taiwan. Over the 4-year hiatus in executions, the violent crime rate dropped precipitously, suggesting that the death penalty is not a main factor in crime rates; but the public in Taiwan appears not to believe that the death penalty fails to deter crimes. When asked a number of questions, survey respondents in Taiwan give various and sometimes conflicting answers. A good majority support the death penalty, although nearly 90% believe that wrongful convictions occur. And while 70-80 percent are against abolition, roughly half reject retribution as a sufficient grounds for execution. (Although note that retribution has in the past been cited as a primary reason among Taiwanese who oppose abolition.) And those who identify themselves as for abolition may sometimes support the death penalty in extreme cases. Holistic questions that allow respondents to balance a variety of considerations yield interesting results—50% of Taiwanese support abolition (as opposed to 40% against and 10% undecided) when given the option of life imprisonment without parole. (These numbers may be approximate, but similar numbers are given by Johnson & Zimring.) This suggests that Taiwanese people may support the death penalty in abstract theoretical circumstances, but might come to much different conclusions about how justice can be fairly administered in reality. Some commentators have observed that Taiwanese do not fully trust the criminal justice system and may take this into account in reaching holistic opinions on the death penalty. The education and development of public opinion is important in Taiwan, where the government’s “gradual abolition” policy looks to public support for abolition.

Six death row prisoners were executed in late December 2012. The executions were carried out during a period of heated debate about capital punishment, following the murder of a child by an unemployed man who reportedly stated that the death penalty would not apply to him and that had committed the crime in order to enjoy life in prison. According to Minister of Justice Tseng, the government had no choice but to carry out the executions given the degree of public outrage. Controversially, the authorities harvested organs from one one of the six who had given his consent to the procedure.

Following the December 2012 executions, the third set carried out since Taiwan adopted the ICCPR into its domestic legislation, a coalition of Taiwan human rights organisations submitted an impeachment motion against Justice Minister Tseng to the Control Yuan, the branch of government responsible for monitoring malfeasance by government officials. The petition charges Tseng with a violation of art. 4-6 of the ICCPR which mandate that anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek a pardon or commutation. The six executed inmates had submitted formal petitions to the president but had received no sign of approval or rejection. In fact, Minister Tseng signed the execution order without first receiving a presidential directive.

Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP)
Ms. Hsinyi Lin
Executive Director
90, Lane, Songjiang Rd. 7F., No.3 - Zhongshan Dist
104 Taipei City, Taiwan
Tel: +886 (0)2 25218870
Fax: +886 (0)2 25319373
hsinyi1975@gmail.com
www.taedp.org.tw, www.peopo.org/taedp

Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP)
Mrs. Jiazhen Wu
Deputy Director
90, Lane, Songjiang Rd. 7F., No.3 - Zhongshan Dist
105 Taipei City, Taiwan
Tel: +886 (0)2 25218870
Fax: +886 (0)2 25319373
jiazhen25@gmail.com
www.taedp.org.tw, www.peopo.org/taedp

Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP)
Ms. Jenchun Hsieh
90, Lane, Songjiang Rd. 7F., No.3 - Zhongshan Dist
106 Taipei City, Taiwan
Tel: +886 (0)2 25218870
Fax: +886 (0)2 25319373
hjcxlt@gmail.com
www.taedp.org.tw, www.peopo.org/taedp

Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP)
Ms. Poya Miao
Legal Director
90, Lane, Songjiang Rd. 7F., No.3 - Zhongshan Dist
106 Taipei City, Taiwan
Fax: +886 (0)2 25319373
www.taedp.org.tw, www.peopo.org/taedp.

In 2010, an Alliance Against Abolishing the Death Penalty was formed, along with some internet groups supporting the death penalty. Crime victims’ associations mostly support the death penalty. They believe abolishing the death penalty would neglect the feelings of victims’ families.

Reprieve
PO Box 72054
London EC3P 3BZ
United Kingdom
Tel 020 7553 8140
Fax 020 7553 8189
info@reprieve.org.uk
http://www.reprieve.org.uk.

For judgments by the criminal courts: http://jirs.judicial.gov.tw/FJUD/.
For opinions of the Constitutional Court: http://www.judicial.gov.tw/CONSTITUTIONALCOURT/en/p03.asp.

Implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Initial Report Submitted Under Article 40 of the Covenant: Republic of China (Taiwan), www.taiwanembassy.org/public/Attachment/3112716271.pdf, Dec. 2012.

Covenants Watch, 2011 Taiwan Human Rights Report: Parallel Report on the Implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, http://covenants-watch.blogspot.com, Nov. 30, 2012.

FIDH & TAEDP, Death Penalty in Taiwan: Towards Abolition?, FIDH Pub. No. 450/2, http://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/tw450a.pdf, Jun. 2006.

Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, Legal Aid Foundation, Staving off the Executioner: Taiwan’s Unofficial Moratorium, Dec. 2009 (published in English and Chinese).

Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, A Blow to Human Rights: Taiwan Resumes Executions—The Death Penalty in Taiwan, 2010, Mar. 28, 2010.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen, Justice Delayed, Justice Denied, Taipei Times, Jan. 3, 2010.

Yang-Huan Li & Hsin-Yi Lin, The Status Quo of the Death Penalty Issues in Taiwan, East Asian Law Journal Vol. 1 No. 2, Sep. 2010.

Fort Fu-Te Liao, The Abolition of the Death Penalty in Taiwan: Why a de facto Moratorium was Established and Lost, pp. 1-22, Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2010.

Huang-Yu Wang & Celia Llopis-Jepsen, The Death Penalty in Taiwan (draft paper), Feb. 1, 2011. (Some death penalty cases are analyzed in this document, published in the Taiwan Law Journal, No. 170, Feb. 15, 2011. We had only the draft document.)

Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, My Country Kills: Constitutional Challenges to the Death Penalty in Taiwan, 2011.

Taiwan Association for Human Rights and Covenants Watch, Taiwan Human Rights Report 2011: Shadow Reports on the International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) from NGOs, May 22, 2012.

None.