양형절차에서 피해자 진술권의 역할

A Study on the Role of Victim Impact Statement in Sentencing Process - Focusing on Article 294-2 of the Criminal Procedure Law -

Victim Impact Statement(VIS) is a basic right guaranteed by the Constitution (Article 27 Section 5) which aims to provide such victim an opportunity to reflect his or her interest or opinion into the criminal process. As an implementing statute of such right, the Criminal Procedure Law (Section 294-2) sets forth the victims' right to make a statement and such right may be exercised in the course of witness examination process. However, some problems arise: the VIS constitutionally protected is exercised in the way of witness examination; there is a room of infringing on such victim's right because the right to make a statement may be restricted if the victim sufficiently make his or her statement during the witness examination; and, it may be necessary to limit the scope of statement because the victim's statement may negatively influence on the sentencing. In this paper, in order to comply with the purpose of the system of VIS, I make a point and suggest some ways to alleviate those problems mentioned above that: the victim's right to make a statement is a basic right and, thus, its scope should not restricted; and the victim's statement may be made in the closing argument in order to prevent it from influencing on sentencing. Moreover, I think that, in order to handle with the cases where a victim is not satisfied with a sentence, it is necessary to take into account of adopting a system where a victim can participate in the sentencing process more aggressively.