Taiwan justice minister resigns over death penalty row (Roundup)

Mar 11, 2010, 16:54 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan's justice minister resigned Thursday over a dispute caused by her call to abolish the death penalty, the Central News Agency reported.

'Wang Ching-feng tendered her resignation to Premier Wu Den-yih, and Wu accepted her resignation,' the agency said.

Wang, a former human rights lawyer, had come under attack in recent days for indicating that she would not authorize executions, despite a demand from the president that she do so, and for pledging to work for the abolishment of the death penalty.

On Wednesday and Thursday the minister faced mounting protests from politicians, scholars and relatives of murder victims, who demanded her resignation and called her muddle-headed and unqualified for her post.

The Presidential Office said Thursday that all the death row convicts must be executed, unless there was a good reason not to carry out the execution.

President Ma Ying-jeou has said that abolishing the death penalty was a world trend, but that Taiwan needs public consensus before it can scrap the death penalty.

Taiwan has not carried out the execution of a death row convict since 2005.

On Thursday, the Justice Ministry said it had formed a committee comprising legal experts, academics and victims' family members to push for abolishment of the death penalty.

The committee was due to hold its first meeting on March 23 and would hold public hearings later on.