범죄피해자 권리의 실효적 보장

Securing the Enforceability of Criminal Victims’ Rights

Although there are various Korean laws which claim that they are designed to secure criminal victims’ rights, they are often ineffective and unenforceable. To make matters worse, some of them are only the victim’s policy. However, the criminal victims should be given the enforceable victims’ rights, through identifying their status as a victim and recovering their damage in criminal procedure. The substance of the criminal victims’ rights can be described as ‘maintaining human dignity’and ‘the pursuit of happiness’which are stipulated in Article 10 of the Korean Constitution. Those precious values can be achieved by securing the en-forceable victims’ rights. The enforceability of victims’rights can be varied according to the chosen paradigm among the witness paradigm, damage paradigm, harm paradigm, and rights paradigm. Above all, the rights paradigm is most suitable to secure the enforceability of victims’ rights. In order to expand the rights of them and ensure more effective rights, the criminal justice system should be improved based on the rights paradigm. To prevent the side effect of rapid improvement, at a initial stage, it would be better to adopt a Japanese model that combines the status of a witness with that of parties to a lawsuit as a victim, and then take a German or French model which has given strong legal power to criminal victims in the criminal procedure.