Fate of death penalty 2/24 by Edward
Judging from the sheer number of lawmakers backing a bill to abolish the death penalty, the days of capital punishment in Korea are numbered. As many as 175 Assembly members spread across party lines lent their names to the bill, deliberated in the Assembly last week for the first time in the republic's legislative history.
Yet, there are few who believe the bill will become a law during the current session, or even this year, as consensus is far from established within the Assembly, let alone nationally. We would like to advise our representatives not to be too hasty about the issue as there are new factors which disallow making a decision purely for humanitarian reasons.
For generations, jurists, criminologists and civic activists worldwide have had exhaustive pro and con debates on the death penalty and Korea has had its fair share of discussions on the issue, particularly since establishment of democratic rule after long years of successive authoritarian governments. Death penalties imposed on political dissenters during the dictatorship of the 1960s and 70s are the additional reality that justified calls for an end to the killing of human beings by the state.
That the bill was initiated by Rep. Yoo Ihn-tae, once an inmate on death row after being convicted of violating a presidential decree banning anti-government activities in the early 1970s, reveals the nature of the campaign in this country. No criminal convict has been executed in Korea since the beginning of the administration of President Kim Dae-jung, a vehement death penalty opponent; he was sentenced to death by a military tribunal in 1980 but the sentence was later commuted to a life term. As a result, 57 criminal convicts are now on death row here.
If the nation has come out of the dark period when the law could be bent and the court influenced for the purpose of suppressing political dissent, society faces new threats to security, ranging from the likes of Yoo Young-cheol, the confessed serial murderer with at least 21 victims, to international terrorists that obligate nations to take all possible measures to protect citizens.
A public opinion poll conducted by the National Human Rights Commission in 2003 found 69.5 percent supporting the death penalty; another survey by the private Korea Social Opinions Research Institute the following year showed support at the still high level of 66.3 percent. These and other survey results are cited by the Justice Ministry as part of its reasons for opposing abolition of capital punishment.
Justice Minister Kim Seung-kyu, in the Judiciary Committee's first deliberation session on the bill, raised the question of "proportionality of punishment" in terrorism, which leaves multiple victims sometimes reaching hundreds or thousands. We agree with him if he meant that national and international societies should not be deterred from executing, say, Osama bin Laden because of any new legislation if the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks is caught alive.
A life term without the possibility of parole or commutation proposed in the bill as the alternative to the death sentence is only a dangerous camouflage to increase public support for abolition of capital punishment. Criminal experts argue there can be no such thing as true "life without parole" because anything can happen once execution is avoided. It would not have the supposed preventive effect of the death penalty and much less corrective effect than an ordinary life term.
<voca>
sheer 완전한, 순진한, 절대적인
number (총계가)~로 이루지다. ~에 넣어서 세다.
~의 수를 확인하다
deliberate ~을 숙고하다.~을 심의하다.
exhaustive 남김없는.소모적인
dissenter (체제에 대한) 반대자.반대체 인사
parole 가석방.가출옥.
camouflage 변장.위장수단
<question>
For a long time, the "death penalty" has been our social controversy. Maybe we must have learnded it from the high school.. now I want to bring up this issue again.
Yeah~~~``let's talk about this.....
approval) we have to adhere to our death penalty system!!
opposition)Considering all aspects, it is totally wrong . the " death penalty" should be abolised!!!
A group> approval : 영. 에드워드
opposition : 찰리. 제임스
B group> approval : 루시아. 리사
opposition :지미. 제리
*Excerpt form "KOREA HERALD"