성폭력범죄 피해아동 진술의 신뢰성 판단과 피고인의 반대신문권

The study on Reliability Test of Testimony by children Victims in Child Sexual Abuse Cases and the Right to Confront Accusing Witness of the Accused

Recently, problems of child sexual abuse crime have been a core matter of public concern and there are the social need of more severe punishment or controls against child sexual abuse criminals in Korean society, with broadcasting reports of a series of relative cases comparing with the other kinds of crimes against adults or juveniles, there are some special features in sexual abuse and violent crime against child, mental or emotional disorders that are continued in whole life time of children like as mental depression, formation of low self-estimation, impulsive suicide, alcoholic or drugs abuse, with severe physical disorders and incapacities but in spite of seriousness in child sexual abuse, there are many regretable aspect in the response of criminal justice system, for instance, low sentencing and conviction rates which falls below social expectation, low rates in arrest or prosecution, secondary or additional victimization during criminal justice process, etc considering special feature of sexual abuse crime, the testimony of children victims plays a core role in proof of criminal facts or eventually solving the cases but in the cases to get effective testimony of victims in investigation or proof of criminal facts in trail, because of criticism about reliability of children testimony and secondary or additional victimization during criminal justice process and in many cases that there are no corroborating forensic evidence like as DNA profile, and so on, or delay between interview with child victim and time of crime, it is more difficult to solve the cases effectively especially, considering the right to confront accusing witness of the accused, the problems like above is more serious because the accused and defense attorney criticized the reliability of testimony by children victims by pointing out low cognitive or expression ability of victims or suggestive effects during interview in investigation with severe psychological oppression against children victims, to make the testimony in-effective, eventually by this reason, it is difficult to solve child sexual abuse case, basically in this study, debates go on focusing the reliability test of testimony by children victims and expecially problems in related to restriction on the right to confront accusing witness of the accused