Abstract
At the centre of the debate about abolishing the death penalty in South Korea is the issue of life imprisonment as an alternative punishment. Currently, South Korea does not impose life imprisonment in a literal sense. In the penal system of South Korea, imprisonment with or without labour for an indefinite term is the penultimate punishment, after the death penalty. Those sentenced to imprisonment for an indefinite term can be released on parole after serving a period in prison. Still, few of them have been released, even when they had behaved well and repented, meeting the legal release requirements. In this chapter, we highlight the harsh reality of long-term prisoners and the limited knowledge about their situation. The constitutional court has challenged the death penalty’s constitutionality, but it has also held that the treatment of individuals detained for long periods must meet international human rights standards and recognize the human dignity of prisoners. We propose that the principle of human dignity, set by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture in 2016, along with the Nelson Mandela Rules, should influence the decisions of the South Korean Government in contemporary debates surrounding alternatives to the death penalty. We also call for more credible information to be made available to the public.
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Notes
- 1.
Such indefinite terms, which are not formally called life imprisonment, may be imposed immediately after conviction.
- 2.
It is noteworthy that the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 did not in itself prohibit the death sentence, but that the Protocol 6 to the Convention (which entered into force in 1985) required Parties to restrict the death penalty to war or ‘imminent threat of war’, while the Protocol 13 (which entered into force in 2003) definitely abolished capital punishment. It is also encouraging that the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), aiming at the abolition of the death penalty of 1989 declares in its preamble ‘believing that abolition of the death penalty contributes to enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights’, and ‘noting that article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights refers to abolition of the death penalty in terms that strongly suggest that abolition is desirable’, as well as ‘convinced that all measures of abolition of the death penalty should be considered as progress in the enjoyment of the right to life’, and ‘desirous to undertake hereby an international commitment to abolish the death penalty’ (OHCHR).
- 3.
The 11 countries from the Asia–Pacific region that voted against a moratorium on the death penalty were: Afghanistan, Brunei Darussalam, China, India, Japan, the Maldives, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, and Tonga (Human Rights Watch, 2020).
- 4.
In this regard, the National Human Rights Commission submitted a statement to the Constitutional Court in February 2021, saying that that life is an absolute value exchangeable for nothing in the world, and underlining that life is dignified human existence itself. The statement also points out that human life and the right to life is one of the most fundamental rights, and that the State has the duty to protect and secure it, and lastly that the State has no right to deprive of the right to life. In response, the Ministry of Justice submitted a counter-statement that the death penalty has a reasonable role to play as a necessary evil.
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List of Cases
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Jeong, YJ., Niikura, O. (2023). Life Imprisonment in South Korea: Life Imprisonment Law and Practice in the Shadow of the Death Penalty. In: van Zyl Smit, D., Appleton, C., Vucong, G. (eds) Life Imprisonment in Asia. Palgrave Advances in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4664-6_12
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