The Ministry of Justice said Taiwan's first step to...

The Ministry of Justice said Taiwan's first step to phase out capital punishment within the space of three years is to reduce the number of offences that lead only to the death penalty. According to Tsai Pi-yi, head of the ministry's prosecutors office, the government will seek to replace the "mandatory death penalty" with the concept of "relative death penalty" as a transitory framework before death penalty is nullified. The "relative death penalty," said Tsai, is aimed at providing the judge with more than only one option - capital punishment - for severe crimes such as murders, robbery and abduction. A series of public opinion polls show that more than 80 percent of the island's people still support the death penalty.