Source photo” alt=”A view of the National Human Rights Commission. <한겨레> Material photo” />
View of the National Human Rights Commission. Base photo
The National Human Rights Commission (HRC) submitted an opinion to the Constitutional Court that the death penalty should be abolished. On the 3rd, the Human Rights Commission announced that it submitted an opinion to the Constitutional Court, saying, “The death penalty is a violation of the essential content of the right to life, so it must be abolished” in response to the ongoing constitutional petition (2019 Constitution 59). The Human Rights Commission said, “The Republic of Korea has not executed the death penalty for more than 20 years, so it has been classified as a country to abolish the death penalty. The international community, including the UN Free Rights Covenant Committee, has continuously recommended the government of the Republic of Korea to abolish the death penalty. He said, “Beginning with expressing opinions on the abolition of the death penalty in 2004, we have steadily expressed our position that the death penalty should be abolished.” The Human Rights Commission said, “If life is lost, it cannot be restored forever, it is an absolute and the source of dignified human existence.” “Human life and its rights are fundamental rights among the basic rights, and the state protects them. It is reasonable to see that there is only an obligation to guarantee, and there is no authority to deprive it.” The NHRCK also said, “There is no clear verification of whether the maintenance and execution of the death penalty system exerts a crime deterrent effect.” “Prevention of crime is not possible through extreme penalties that have not proven criminal deterrence. It comes from the effort of punishment.” Regarding the assertion of the theory of respect for the death penalty system that the possibility of misjudgment can be minimized through scientificization of the investigation and improvement of the judicial procedure, it is said, “The death penalty was executed by a misjudgment like the victims of the Inhyukdang Reconstruction Committee case, who were acquitted at the retrial in 2007 In this case, the life cannot be restored,” he concluded. “The value of a life that has been innocently removed cannot be justified no matter how much emphasis is placed on the public interest.” In addition, “in terms of edification, which is one of the purposes of punishment, it is fundamentally impossible to educate and purify the life that has already been removed by executing the death penalty.” “The death penalty is the only one that cannot achieve the purpose of purifying education. As a punishment, it is necessary to come up with a number of alternative measures that can replace the death penalty and achieve the policy objectives of the punishment system.” The Human Rights Commission said, “The death penalty is a cruel punishment against human dignity, and what the state uses as a means to achieve the purpose of punishment violates the rule of surplus money and violates the essential content of the right to life. Ahead of the decision of the Constitutional Court, I hope that the Republic of Korea will be able to abolish the death penalty, beyond the state of the death penalty, so that human dignity can be respected.” By Kim Yoon-joo, staff reporter [email protected]