중대재해처벌법의 위헌 여부에 관한 소고

Abstract

There is a background that has been criticized as punishment for many serious disasters in our industrial sites. In response, labor groups and others have been steadily raising the need for corporate social responsibility and the government to strengthen punishment for those responsible. As an alternative, there was also a view to strengthen the attribution of criminal responsibility to executives. Many industrial accident accidents have become an issue as a social problem. In the end, in 2021, the ‘Jungdae Disaster Punishment Act’ was enacted. However, after the law was enacted, the business community raised the question of whether it was unconstitutional, referring to abstract regulations on the responsibility of managers. In addition, in the case of indictment No. 1, ‘Doosung Industry’, it is in a situation where it has requested an unconstitutional statute adjudication during the trial process. These are the two provisions of the Severe Accident Punishment Act that were requested for a constitutionality trial. First, Article 4 of the Act (Obligation to secure safety and health of business owners and managers in charge of business), Paragraph 1, Item 1, and second, Article 6 of the Act (Punishment of business owners and managers in charge of business in serious industrial accidents), Paragraph 2. In other words, (i) the contents of the regulations are ambiguous, unclear, and arbitrary in relation to the ‘principle of clarity’ of the principle of criminal legality, (ii) in relation to the ‘principle of prohibition of excess’, the criminal responsibility of the person in charge of management in view of the actual state of the crime and the seriousness of the crime. It raised the point of excessive responsibility and (iii) that the statutory penalty was too high compared to the fatal drunk driving accident in relation to the ‘equality principle’. In this paper, we reviewed the ‘whether the Severe Accident Punishment Act was unconstitutional’. The Serious Accident Punishment Act (i) whether the content of the law is clear is essentially a matter of degree, and the degree of clarity differs depending on the subject of judgment, (ii) individual business owners or business managers, etc. that there is no immediate punishment for violating the obligation to ensure safety and health under Article 5; (iii) that there is no major obstacle in determining the punishment appropriate for the responsibility by providing the lower limit of the statutory punishment, considering the seriousness of the crime , (iv) The principle of equality concluded by the Constitutional Court through comparison with the sentence for driving under the influence was reviewed to apply according to the case and current situation, rather than ‘the same sentence in a linear fashion’. And in the plan to improve the unconstitutionality of the Severe Accident Punishment Act, (i) to secure the principle of clarity in the duties of business managers, etc., the contents of the actions of the perpetrators will become clear through the accumulation of future theories, administrative interpretations, and precedents, (ii) ) that this can establish clarity, and (iii) suggested expanding the application of the Severe Accident Punishment Act to workplaces with less than 5 employees.