Capital punishment in Taiwan


is a legal penalty in the Republic of China. The list of capital offences for which the death penalty can be imposed includes murder, treason, drug trafficking, piracy, terrorism, and especially serious cases of robbery, rape, and kidnapping, as well as military offences such as desertion during wartime. In practice, however, all executions in Taiwan since the early 2000s have been for murder.
Before 2000, Taiwan had a relatively high execution rate, when strict laws surrounding capital punishment were still in effect. However, controversial legal cases during the 1990s and changing attitudes among officials towards the abolition of the death penalty led to a significant drop in the number of executions, with only three in 2005 and none between 2006 and 2009. Executions resumed in 2010, and according to polls, more than 80% of Taiwanese people support the continued use of capital punishment.
A 2024 poll found that 84% of Taiwanese oppose the abolition of the death penalty.

Capital offences

Under military law

The Criminal Law of the Armed Forces rules that the following crimes are eligible for the death penalty when committed by military personnel:
  • Treason
  • Collaboration
  • Espionage
  • Defection
  • Malfeasance
  • Disclosure of intelligence or secrets
  • Desertion only during war time
  • Disobeying orders
  • Mutiny
  • Hijacking
  • Destroying military supplies and equipment
  • Stealing and selling ammunition
  • Fabricating orders

    Under civilian law

The Criminal Code of the Republic of China rules that the following civilian offenses are eligible for the death penalty:
  • Civil disturbance as ringleader
  • Treason
  • Abandoning territory in charge
  • Hijacking
  • Sexual Offenses with murder
  • Civil servant forcing others to cultivate, sell or transport poppy plants to manufacture opium or morphine
  • Murder
  • Robbery with homicide, severe injury, rape, kidnapping or arson
  • Piracy
  • Kidnapping with homicide, severe injury or rape
Article 63 of the Criminal Code also rules that the death penalty cannot be imposed for offenders aged below 18 or above 80. The death penalty is not prescribed as a mandatory punishment in any case and is only imposed with the discretion of the sentencing court.
Other special laws which define capital offenses include:
  • Civil Aviation Act
  • * Hijacking
  • * Endangering flight safety or aviation facilities by force and causing death
  • * Using unapproved aviation products, appliances, and parts to cause death
  • Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act
  • * Manufacturing, transporting or selling Category One narcotics
  • * Compelling others to use Category One narcotics by means of violence, coercion, deception or other illegal methods
  • * Civil servant manufacturing, transporting or selling Category Two narcotics
  • Punishment Act for Violation to Military Service System
  • * Carrying weapons by group, obstructing a military service and causing death
  • * Carrying weapons by group, fighting publicly against a military service and
  • ** Causing death or
  • ** Being the ringleader.
  • Child and Youth Sexual Transaction Prevention Act
  • * Committing and purposely killing the victim of
  • ** Making a person under 18 engage in a sexual transaction by violence, menace, medicament, control, hypnogenesis, or other ways against the will of himself/herself
  • ** Intending to making a person under 18 engage in a sexual transaction, and to deliver or accept him/her to or from another person by dealing, impawning or other ways and by violence, menace, medicament, control, hypnogenesis or other ways against the will of himself/herself
  • Punishment Act for Genocide
  • * Intending to commit genocide and committing any of the following:
  • ** Murder
  • ** Serious injury, physically or mentally
  • ** Fertility impairment
  • ** Child abduction
  • ** Other ways sufficient to eliminate the group
  • Firearms, Ammunition, and Knives Control Act
  • * Manufacturing, selling or transporting cannons, shoulder arms, machine guns, submachine guns, carbines, automatic rifles, rifles, traditional carbines, pistols, or any types of artillery shells, bombs and explosives without approval with an intention to commit a crime by himself/herself or assist others to commit a crime
  • Act for the Control and Punishment of Smuggling
  • * Smuggling, resisting arrest or inspection with a weapon and causing death
In practice, all death sentences and executions since 2003 have been imposed for murder-related offences. The last non-homicide-related execution in Taiwan took place in October 2002, in the case of a Pingtung County fisherman who was accused of trafficking 295 kg of heroin in 1993.

Defunct laws

Two laws, now invalid, have historically contributed to a significant number of executions in Taiwan:
  • The, repealed in May 1991), which imposed a mandatory death sentence for cases of treason, espionage, and defection. The law was enacted in 1949 when the Central Government had just retreated to Taiwan, and was applicable to both military and common courts, playing an important role during the White Terror. Information about people sentenced according to this law was historically restricted because of their legal status as courts-martial. Two high-profile cases, that of Bo Yang and Shih Ming-teh, involved an initial death sentence under this law that was eventually commuted to life imprisonment due to heavy political pressure that surrounded their trials.
  • Robbery Punishment Act, which ruled a mandatory death penalty for cases of kidnapping, piracy or robbery along with murder, rape, and arson. Originally enacted as a short-term special law by the Kuomintang government during the Second Sino-Japanese War period, this law was eventually extended indefinitely for security reasons.

    Execution process

A ROC judicial execution requires a final sentence from the Supreme Court of the Republic of China and a warrant of execution signed by the Minister of Justice. After the Supreme Court either rejects an appeal of, or issues a final death sentence, the case is transferred to the Ministry of Justice, where the Minister of Justice issues a final secret execution date. There are no statutes or regulations regarding time limits before the Minister must sign a warrant of execution, though once a warrant of execution is issued, the inmate must be executed within three days. Should any new evidence or procedural flaw that influences the verdict to be discovered during the three-day period, the condemned inmate may make a plea to the Ministry of Justice. This may then delay the warrant of execution if either the Prosecutor General of the Supreme Prosecutors Office makes an Extraordinary Appeal to the Supreme Court, or if the responsible High Court accepts the discovery of new evidence and initiates a retrial. However, such cases are very rare: to date, only one condemned prisoner avoided capital punishment after the warrant of execution was issued. The President of Republic of China can also award clemency, but so far only President Chiang Kai-shek ever exercised this legal right, once in 1957. President Lee Teng-hui also ordered two nationwide commutations in 1988 and 1991 in which two sentences were commuted from death to life imprisonment.
The warrant of execution from the Minister of Justice is received and performed by the High Prosecutors offices, so executions are carried out inside the detention centers of the six municipalities with a High Court: Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Hualien, and Kinmen. Like Japan, ROC death row inmates are kept in detention centres but not prisons, and under harsher conditions than general prisoners. Typically two inmates are housed in a cell. The practice of shackling prisoners 24 hours a day has been reported to be no longer in effect, but prisoners on death row are only allowed to leave the cell for half an hour a day for exercise. Prisoners are allowed to read censored newspapers and books as well as practise religious activities with approved religious personnel.
Executions are carried out by shooting using a handgun aimed at the heart from the back, or aimed at the brain stem under the ear if the prisoner had consented to organ donation prior to the withdrawal of legal death row organ donation. The execution time used to be 5:00 a.m., but was changed to 9:00 p.m. in 1995 to reduce officials' workload. It was changed again to 7:30 p.m. in 2010. Executions are performed in secret: nobody is informed beforehand, including the condemned. The condemned is brought to the execution range and the officers may pay respect to the statue of Ksitigarbha located outside the range before entering. Before the execution, the prisoner's identity is confirmed by a special court next to the execution range under the supervision of the prosecutor and chooses to record any last words. The prisoner is then brought to the execution range and served a last meal. The condemned prisoner is then injected with strong anaesthetic to cause unconsciousness, laid flat on the ground, face down, and shot. The executioner then burns a votive bank note for the deceased before carrying away the corpse. It is tradition for the condemned to place a NT$500 or 1000 banknote in his leg irons as a tip for the executioners.
After the execution, the High Prosecutor's Office issues the official announcement of the execution. Although the Ministry of Justice has studied other methods including hanging and lethal injection since the early 1990s, execution by shooting is the only execution method used in the ROC currently.
Military sentences and executions in Taiwan used to be administered only by the Ministry of National Defense, with the warrant of execution signed by the Minister of National Defense, and have no connection with the Ministry of Justice. They were carried out in military courts and prisons across the island as well as Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. Unlike the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of National Defense did not release detailed information on executions, and so little information was available. Since 2013, all ordinary crimes conducted by military personnel are transferred to the jurisdiction of common courts due to the Death of Hung Chung-chiu, rendering all military courts, military prosecutors office, and military prisons obsolete in peacetime. Therefore, technically all military executions are also under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, though there have been no military death row inmates since 2002.