Teacher Wang, Po-Chi in was interviewed by UDN: Scholar: The risk of abolishing death in current debates is too high
Scholar: The risk of abolishing death is too high now.
2024-04-18 02:07 United Daily News/reporter
Lin Mengjie and Wang Hongshun/Taipei Report
On April 23rd, the Constitutional Court will debate whether the death penalty should be abolished. Some scholars think that it is too hasty and risky to discuss whether the death penalty should be abolished now because the hole in the social safety net has not been filled and the relevant system is not in GAI. However, some scholars point out that the death penalty violates human dignity and is a kind of state power with too vague authorization, while others advocate that the scope of application of the death penalty should be limited.
Wang, Po-Chi, an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice of Ming Chuan University, pointed out that Taiwan Province has no supporting measures to abolish death so far, and the social safety net is riddled with holes. Hastily abolishing death will make it worse, which will make the whole system collapse and the society and all the people will have to bear the consequences; He believes that the death penalty is still necessary, and it is better to reserve it than to use it, and it has the effect of declaration and deterrence.
Wang, Po-Chi said that foreign scholars have done research on the retention or abolition of the death penalty and found that every execution of a condemned person can save three to eighteen lives, and potential criminals will be more peaceful; A study by Emory University in Georgia, USA, found that every execution of a death sentence can deter 18 murders; In 2006, the University of Houston studied the suspension of the death penalty in Illinois in 2000, and the number of homicides increased by 150 in about four or five years, indicating that speeding up the execution of the death penalty can strengthen the deterrent effect.
However, Chueh-An Yen, a professor at National Taiwan University, believes that the death penalty is a cruel and inhuman criminal law, which violates human dignity. It is a kind of state power with too vague authorization. Based on the consideration of liberal democratic constitutional order, it should be completely banned.
JENG Shannyinn, a professor at Kainan University, thinks that the death penalty system is constitutional, but it should be limited, for example, to major crimes of deprivation of life. Because the death penalty is irreversible, or it may be misjudged, more supporting measures should be taken, but it is not appropriate to have more relief procedures for delaying execution after the decision is made, otherwise it will be difficult for the judiciary to gain the trust of the Chinese people.
Yung-Lien(Edward)Lai, a professor at Chung Cheng University, pointed out that the elected government should not go backwards and act against public opinion, otherwise it will be spurned by public opinion.
Yu-shun Lin, chairman of the Japanese Criminal Law Research Society in Taiwan Province, pointed out that the abolition of the death penalty is a problem that Taiwan Province has to face. Extremely heavy punishment can’t solve the crime problem, and the death penalty also has congenital contradictions, that is, people are required not to kill people, but the state can kill people, and the death penalty also leaves no chance to rehabilitate unjust cases.
Yu-shun Lin believes that deliberative democracy should be used to form decisions, and people should participate in trials to let the public know more about justice and death penalty, and then decide whether a case needs to be sentenced to death. He pointed out that the state and the government did not communicate well, that is, it was too fast and too risky to discuss the death penalty.
