Taiwan: The execution of Huang Lin-kai – a cruel and illegal killing

Taiwan’s first execution in just under five years would appear to be a cynical abuse of political power. Huang Lin-kai was executed on 16 January 2025, while an appeal was pending before the courts. The Minister of Justice signed his execution warrant only a matter of hours before he was killed by the State, leaving no time for a final visit from his family. He was sedated, made to lie face-down and shot through the back of his heart at 10:02pm. The execution came less than four months after Taiwan’s Constitutional Court promised to safeguard defendants’ and prisoners’ rights in capital cases.

On 20 September 2024, the Constitutional Court had delivered a seminal judgment on a challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty. Although it upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty for "the most serious" offences of premeditated murder, the Court recognised fundamental flaws that have characterized its use and imposed a range of due process protections severely limiting its application in the future. The Court gave the government two years to amend the law to comply with the judgment. The laws had not been amended at the time Huang Lin-kai was executed.

One of the most important protections mandated by the Constitutional Court is to ensure that the death penalty can only be imposed following unanimous judgments at trial and on appeals — a majority decision would no longer satisfy the due process requirements enshrined in the constitution. For the 37 people on death row at the time of the Constitutional Court judgment, including Huang Lin-kai, the court ruled that their cases would need to be reviewed by the prosecution to ascertain whether there had been unanimous judgments in their respective trials and appeals. The outcome of each review would need to be disclosed to their respective legal teams, which would ensure that each defendant could request that the Attorney General file an extraordinary appeal.

At the time of Huang Lin-kai's scheduled execution, his lawyer had not received information confirming whether the decisions in his case had been reached unanimously. Additionally, a pre-sentencing social investigation had not been conducted in his case, raising questions as to whether the standard imposed by the Constitutional Court—that cases must be examined through the most stringent process—was followed. 

The authorities must have been aware that to sanction Huang Lin-kai’s execution in these circumstances was premature and therefore illegal. It is to be hoped that none of the other remaining 36 death row prisoners face execution before the judgment of the Constitutional Court has ensured that they have full due process of law.

On the evening of 16 January, Huang Lin-kai's legal team submitted an appeal for a retrial with the Taipei High Court and further, petitioned the Constitutional Court for a stay of execution (as their judgment had not been applied to his case). Nevertheless, the Ministry of Justice insisted on proceeding with the execution in flagrant disregard of the pending legal proceedings. Why did the Minister of Justice, Cheng Ming-chien, authorise an execution that was unlawful and arbitrary, in violation of the right to life, showing scant regard for the rule of law and recognised international principles?

The UN Safeguards guaranteeing the protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty, state that “[c]apital punishment shall not be carried out pending any appeal or other recourse procedure or other proceeding relating to pardon or commutation of the sentence” (Safeguard 8).  

In 2009 Taiwan incorporated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) into domestic law. This was a commendable and progressive step, yet the current administration chose to deliberately ignore the legal obligations Taiwan has voluntarily accepted. The ICCPR is clear that states—which should also be on an “irrevocable path towards the eradication of the death penalty” (Article 6(6))—cannot carry out a sentence of death when there are unresolved judicial proceedings and when prisoners have recourse to legal remedies and are entitled to have their cases reviewed, including supervisory review by prosecutors or courts, and when requests for stays of execution have been filed. Huang Lin-kai's execution clearly places Taiwan in breach of their obligations under the ICCPR, and its own domestic law.

Taiwan's reputation as a country that respects the rule of law and democratic values is jeopardised by the killing of Huang Lin-kai in circumstances that were in violation of constitutional and international safeguards. The execution is a stain on the administration of President Lai Ching-te, who has been in office less than a year. His party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is a centre-left Taiwanese nationalist party, traditionally associated with a reasonably strong position on human rights. However, it has been equivocal in its commitment to the abolition of the death penalty. Indeed, though the DPP has expressed that its goal is abolition, Lai Ching-te’s predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, presided over two executions during her eight years as president: Lee Hung-chi was executed in 2018 and Weng Jen-hsien in 2020.

As elsewhere, in Taiwan, the natural inclination of ruling parties can be affected by their political opponents. In Taiwan, the DPP’s opposition party, Kuomintang (KMT), is in favour of the death penalty for its purported deterrent effect and because it is argued that the public are in favour. The KMT framed the DPP as having achieved the phasing out of the death penalty through its control over the Constitutional Court following its September judgment, using this for political attacks on the DPP. It has been suggested that public political criticisms of the DPP by the KMT have led DPP presidents to support executions to shore up their approval ratings and support for government.

If the government of Taiwan is prepared to put individuals to death for political purposes—a cynical reminder of realpolitik of the death penalty around the world—they may wish to remind themselves that they risk damaging their international reputation for very little gain. Our public opinion research in Taiwan, and in many other countries in Asia and Africa, has demonstrated that crude government opinion polls dramatically overestimate the extent of support for capital punishment. Indeed, most people are not particularly interested in or knowledgeable about the death penalty, and once they know more about its administration, its arbitrariness and the real risks of wrongful convictions, most would accept abolition if that was government policy. Given that we have also published research on the multiple failings in the Taiwanese criminal process, and the alarming series of unsafe capital convictions, we would remind Lai Ching-te that like all other retentionist nations, Taiwan cannot administer the death penalty safely and fairly, and any suggested benefits of retention are inevitably outweighed by the many pitfalls of this cruel and undignified punishment.

Saul Lehrfreund is the Co-Executive Director of The Death Penalty Project and Visiting Professor of Law, University of Reading.

Carolyn Hoyle is Professor of Criminology in the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford, and Director of the Death Penalty Research Unit (DPRU).

Photo credit: Matthew Fang via Flickr: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.