사형폐지 소론

Proposals Towards the Abolition of Death Penalty

&nbsp;&nbsp;The Republic of Korea has been a retentionist nation since its establishment. The death penalty was seriously abused in South Korea during the Korean War and by the authoritarian military regime which governed the country for many years thereafter. Even after political democratization, it has been retained for the ostensible purpose of deterrence of crime despite strong calls for its abolition by civic and religious organizations throughout the nation. Public sentiment also appears to support the death penalty. The constitutionality of the death penalty was confirmed by the Korean Constitutional Court in 1996.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;However, there has been an "unofficial moratorium" on executions since President Kim Dae-Jung took office in February 1998. Korea is now a de facto abolitionist nation. There have also been continuous attempts to abolish the death penalty in the Legislature. Since 1999, three bills to abolish the death penalty have been submitted in the National Assembly, although they failed to be passed. In 2005, the National Human Rights Commission recommended that capital punishment be abolished and the National Assembly should consider adopting one of three alternative punishments such as life imprisonment without parole or reduction of sentence, life imprisonment without parole or reduction of sentence for a certain period, and retention of the death penalty only in time of war.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;In this context, it is certain that Korean society has been moving towards the abolition of the death penalty. However, it would not be realistic to anticipate that the newly elected conservative Lee Myung-Bak government will abolish the death penalty. Calling for the abolition of death penalty, this Article also suggests that Lee government maintain “unofficial moratorium” on executions, reduce the number of criminal provisions with death penalty, and introduce the ten year suspension system of the execution.