One Year Since Constitutional Court Capital Ruling: Justice Minister Cheng Ming-chien Condemned for Refusing to Execute 37 Death Row Inmates to Advance De Facto Abolition

On September 22, 2026 (115th Year of the Republic of China), marking the one-year anniversary of the Constitutional Court's Judgment No. 8 (2024) which imposed stringent procedural hurdles on the death penalty, none of Taiwan's 37 finalized death row inmates had been executed. During legislative interpellation in the new parliamentary session, opposition lawmakers fiercely interrogated Justice Minister Cheng Ming-chien, emphasizing that over 80 percent of the public consistently opposes the abolition of capital punishment. Critics charged that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party engineered judicial overreach through friendly constitutional judges to nullify capital statutes in all but name. As the statutory authority responsible for signing execution warrants, Cheng repeatedly obfuscated before parliament, citing ongoing extraordinary appeals to justify inaction. Opposition figures and victims' rights advocates condemned Cheng for dereliction of duty, subordinating lawful court verdicts to partisan ideology, and dismantling the final legal barrier of criminal deterrence in the Republic of China.