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Wang dealt blow to her own cause
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010, Page 8
Responding to a public outcry and calls from legislators from her own party to
step down, Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) resigned on Thursday night.
In an open letter on Wednesday, Wang stated her opposition to the death penalty
and said she “would rather go to hell” than order the execution of the 44
convicts on death row.
From a humanitarian standpoint, Wang’s behavior was admirable. But when the
highest judicial official in the land publicly advocates breaking the law and
violates the neutrality she should maintain between criminal and victim, she
hurts the government, the Ministry of Justice and the spirit of the law — not to
mention the campaign against the death penalty.
Wang’s personal opposition to the death penalty and her public refusal in her
position as justice minister to carry out the law are two different things. She
is entitled to her own ideals and values, but the question was if she, as the
justice minister, had the right to ignore a verdict or possessed the power to
grant pardons so she could refuse to carry out the law, especially since these
cases have gone through extraordinary appeals and been finalized, with some
cases even having been subjected to a constitutional interpretation. The answer
is no.
No executions have been carried out since 2006. There are now 44 death row
inmates who do not know whether they will live or die. In a democracy,
executions always set off a hot debate between proponents and opponents of the
death sentence, and a decision involving 44 lives is sure to have a major
political and social impact.
The public and the media have questioned this situation, but as past justice
ministers have trod carefully and found reasons to postpone the executions, both
the public and media have avoided forcing the ministry’s hand.
When Wang publicly declared her refusal to order any executions, she challenged
the families of victims and the general public. Opinion polls show that more
than 70 percent of respondents oppose abolishing the death penalty and that 40
percent thought Wang should step down. The Control Yuan deemed it necessary to
launch an investigation and legislators from both camps were asking questions.
Not even President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who opposes the death penalty, could
protect Wang. Both the Presidential Office and the premier declared that while
public opinion remains divided over the future of capital punishment, the
Ministry of Justice should go ahead and order that the executions be carried
out. This was a major blow to Taiwan’s movement against the death penalty.
Wang was not the first justice minister to oppose capital punishment. When Ma
held the post 20 years ago, he was personally against it but understood the
legal implications of his job and that executions had to be carried out until
the law is changed. Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) and later justice ministers also moved
toward the abolition of the death penalty by doing such things as changing
mandatory death sentences to discretionary sentences, thus giving judges greater
freedom to decide.
Apart from not ordering any executions, Wang did little during her two years in
office. She did not initiate a debate about the death penalty or plan any legal
amendments, nor did she campaign for the abolition of capital punishment. When
she suddenly took such a public stance on the issue, it was not surprising that
many media outlets questioned whether she was simply out for publicity.
Wang’s statements were not widely supported by either the public or government
officials. While she may be a good human rights lawyer, she was a less
impressive justice minister.
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