‘노인학대범죄의 처벌 등에 관한 특례법(안)’상 노인학대범죄사건의 처리절차에 대한 검토와 그 개선방안

Abstract

As our society became rapidly an aging society, problems of the aged are increasing in numbers. Among them, the aged abuse comes to the fore as a serious problem of the society. Therefore, on 29 January 2004, in amendment of 「Welfare of the Aged Act : WAA」, after making a legal basis on prevention and measures of the aged abuse, the government revised and complemented it three times. Also it established the aged protection institution and the policy for them were made and enforced to protect the aged abuse victims according to international standards. However, questions are being asked regarding effectiveness of measures for prevention of the aged abuse and protection of the aged abuse victims. Some People think that such questions result from insufficiency of the existing provision of WAA as to the aged abuse. For this reason, recently in National Assembly, there was a movement for enactment of 「Act on Special Cases concerning the Punishment, etc. of the Aged Abuse Crime」which is an independent law regarding the aged abuse. Therefore in this paper I critically examine procedural law parts of this Bill from the perspective of the criminal law and suggest points to modify and to make up this Bill. To make this Bill to function as a law for the protection of the aged victims and the improvement of assailants, I suggest (i) the introduction of ways to activate of reporting, and the extension of the range of people bound in duty to give the abuse notification and the expansion of the agency receiving the abuse notification, (ii) the imposition of cooperation duty on the interested parties in the abuse case and the control on inspectors who are mobilized to the scene of abuse, (iii) the reflection of opinions of the aged abuse victims and Elder Protection Agency in the process of handling the aged abuse crimes, (iv) the disclosure prohibition of the identity of family members of the abused victims and the fact of abuse victim, and an introduction of ‘protection order system’ for the aged abuse victims.