피해자변호사제도와 그 개선방안

Abstract

The Art. 27-5 of the Constitution in Korea stipulates the rights of victims such as crime victim's right to statement. The criminal procedure law as well has expanded the system to protect victims in criminal procedures as well as opportunities for victims to participate in such criminal procedures. And the various measures to protect crime victims have been established and implemented by laws and institutions. Especially, as sexual violence crimes in Korean society become more often and serious, such special laws as 「the Exemption Act on Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes(EAPSVC)」 and 「the Act on Protection of Children and Juveniles from Sexual Abuse(APCJSA)」 have provided measures to protect sexual crime victims in consideration of the stabbing anguish of victims. Since there is a high risk of harm after the incident during the period of criminal investigation and public trials especially in the case of sexual violence victims, various measures have been established and taken to protect victims. Such provisions, however, have been limited to mere psychological and mental help and failed to assure rights of victims in criminal procedures. True, there have been limits to legal assistance for such victims. Accordingly, the government revised APCJSA(revised on Sep 15, 2011 and enforced on March 16, 2012), and newly established the regulations on defender appointment(Art. 18-6) for child and juvenile sexual crime victims. Again, the Ministry of Justice revised the Art. 27 of EAPSVC(enforced on June 9, 2013; Law provision no. 11729) and the Art. 30-1 of APCJSA(enforced on June 19, 2013; Law provision no. 11572), stipulating the basis and authority of the victim defender system. The art. 27-6 of EAPSVC, which states that ⑥ the prosecutor may select a public defender and project the victim's interests in the criminal procedures if he/she has no defender appointed, stipulates the public defender system for all sexual violence victims. This became the basis for the Art. 30-2 of APCJSA. Accordingly, the victim defender system and victim's public defender system started to be expanded and implemented for all sexual violence crime victims on June 19, 2012. And this system expanded to the children victim of child abuse crimes by 「the Exemption Act on Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes」(enacted on Dec. 31, 2013). So, in this paper, I examined the defender system for crime victims and suggested it’s improvement measures as ways to overcome the problems of the current defender system for victims.