The death penalty is provided for murder, drug offenses, treason and military offenses.

The death penalty is provided for murder, drug offenses, treason and military offenses. A 2010 report by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty states that 52 legislative provisions provide for the death penalty.
Taiwan was the first government outside of the United States to legislate lethal injection as a form of execution. However, Taiwan has used it once in 1997, and executions continue to be carried out by shooting. Executions usually take place close to dawn and are carried out by prison guards who position the prisoner on the ground, face down, and shoot him directly in the heart. An exception may be made, however, if the inmate is an organ donor, in which case the guards won't shoot for the heart. Three or more armed guards usually carry out an execution. All prisoners receive anaesthesia and are unconscious before they are shot.
In recent years, the Taiwanese Government has often tried to manifest its political will towards abolishing the death penalty by giving a broader scope to and greater care towards human rights.
In 2008, then-Minister of Justice of Taiwan, Wang Ching-feng, voiced her opinion against the death penalty. “Life should not be taken away (from a human being),” she said. Wang Ching-feng added she would attempt to abolish the death penalty to bring the island into line with the international trend, stating that capital punishment is cruel and fails to demonstrate that punishments should also serve rehabilitation purposes. In March 2010, Taiwan’s Justice Minister resigned after failing to win support for her opposition to the death penalty. “I would rather step down than sign any death warrant,” Wang Ching-feng said, adding she would gladly die instead of any of the 44 inmates on death row, if only they got a chance to rehabilitate themselves.
In May 2011, Taiwan moved a step closer toward the reduced use of the death penalty as the Legislative Yuan amended the Country’s law on military service violations. According to the amendment, those who carry weapons by group and obstruct a military service causing the death or serious injury to a person will be subject to a maximum life sentence rather than the death penalty.
On 20 April 2012, President Ma Ying-jeou said his administration would reduce the use of the death penalty as part of efforts to protect human rights, and promised to seek public consensus on the issue to move toward the abolition of capital punishment. Ma made the remarks while presenting the first national human rights report since signing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under the UN in 2009. Ma said that while the abolition of the death penalty was a global trend, Taiwan still has capital punishment because there remained a lack of consensus on the issue among Taiwanese. “The two UN covenants do not ban capital punishment, but encourage all Countries to move toward the abolition of it … We’ve discussed the nation’s situation with the international community and let other Countries understand that we haven’t been able to abolish the death penalty because of divided opinions on the issue domestically,” Ma said. “What we can do, and have already been doing now, is to reduce the death penalty,” he added.
On 19 March 2013, Taiwan's Premier Jiang Yi-huah said that the government is cautiously assessing the scrapping of capital punishment, but added that the current policy of executing death row inmates remains unchanged. "Currently, a majority of Taiwan people hold a positive view on maintaining capital punishment to deter heinous crimes. The Ministry of Justice is constantly studying the issue, but our current policy has not changed," the premier said. Justice Minister Tseng Yung-fu said the ministry will carry out such sentences if there are no further reasons for special appeal or retrial.
On 20 April 2013, responding to a call by the European Parliament for an immediate end to the use of capital punishment in Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) reiterated that such a step cannot be taken in the country without the support of the people. "The government must gather people's opinions to obtain consensus" on the issue, MOFA spokeswoman Anna Kao told reporters, one day after Taiwan executed six death row inmates.
On 21 April 2013, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton condemned the six executions that took place in Taiwan on 19 April. “Taiwan’s authorities continue to act in disregard of concerns expressed worldwide,” Ashton said in a statement. In that statement, Ashton said that she recognised the serious nature of the crimes involved and expressed her sincere sympathy to the families of the victims; however, she regretted that the Taiwanese authorities had chosen to ignore the recommendation to introduce an immediate moratorium on executions, which was made on 1 March 2013 by the international panel of experts convened to review Taiwan’s first human rights report. “This decision very unfortunately confirms the deterioration of the situation in Taiwan on the question of the death penalty, after the interruption of a four-year de facto moratorium on executions,” Ashton said, while at the same time she called again on the Taiwanese authorities to “end this back-tracking and to work effectively towards a moratorium on executions with a view to abolition.”
Since Tseng Yung-fu became justice minister in 2010, a total of 21 criminals (up to June 2013) on death row have been executed during his tenure. Taiwan had executed five other prisoners in March 2011 and four in April 2010. Since 1981, 558 people (up to June 2013) have been executed, according to information from Taiwan’s Justice Ministry. However, there was a drastic reduction in death sentences and executions in Taiwan between 1998 and 2005: 32 people were put to death in 1998; 24 in 1999; 17 in 2000; 10 in 2001; 9 in 2002; 7 in 2003; down to 3 in 2004 and in 2005. No one was executed in 2006, in 2007, in 2008 and in 2009. With April 2013 executions, the number of death row inmates now stands at 50, according to the Ministry of Justice.
The Ministry of Justice released public poll results showing that nearly 80 percent of the people in Taiwan are against abolishing the death penalty. The polls conducted in July 2012 by Master Survey & Research Co. for the ministry found that 76.7 percent of those polled did not support scrapping the death penalty and that 85 percent believed that ending capital punishment would be detrimental to public order. The poll also found that 81.6 percent of those surveyed said a gradual decrease in the use of capital punishment would be acceptable, the ministry said. A poll released by National Cheng Chung University in January 2013 showed that 90 percent of respondents opposed abolishing capital punishment.