The NHRC is due to submit 10 pending problems on human rights which upcoming administration should solve (01-28-2003)
The NHRC determined that the Commission will set tasks -10 pending problems on human rights - to the President-elect, Moo-Hyun Noh and the chief of the presidential transition team on 27th Jan. 2003.
The 10 current problems on human rights are as follows; alteration and abolition of the National Security Act; the enactment of Anti-discrimination Act; abatement of prescription of a public prosecution about anti-human rights crimes; improvement of the death penalty system; improvement of protective custody; improvement of the medical system in detention facilities; observation of reddenda (reservation provision) and not-joining or non-ratification among UN covenants; human rights of foreign workers; violation privacy such as wiretapping or eavesdropping; and bio-ethics problems, such as human embryo cloning.
These current problems include all matters which the NHRC has acknowledged and that civic groups have suggested for the past.
The National Security Act has ceaselessly recommended the revision or abolition of domestic and overseas NGOs, due to the possibility of anti-democracy and human rights violation during the application of the law. Finally the upcoming president, Noh, has mentioned the alteration of the act during presidential election campaign.
The Anti-Discrimination Act will stipulate principles which can prohibit 5 kinds of unreasonable discrimination educational background, sex, disability, contingent worker conditions and race- discrimination that President-elect Noh vowed to combat in his election pledges.
Regarding "prescription of a public prosecution about anti-human rights crimes," domestic and overseas NGOs have voiced the opinion that prescription of a public prosecution period of crimes by national power should be eliminated, in which can be included severe human rights violation crimes such as torture and crimes that the national authority can deliberately and systematically violate the rights of criminals.
The death penalty has been criticized as beyond the objective of suitable punishment and has been recommended for abolition, and is considered inhumane and a violation of the "right for lives" system. The number of countries which have abolished the death penalty totaled 111 in 2002. On the other hand, there are 106 provisions related to the death penalty in the Korean legal system, and 60 criminals sentenced to death are a waiting execution. For reference, 9.6 criminals have been executed every year between 1989 and1998, but there have been no executions since that time.
In the case of the "improvement of protective custody system," the main issue is the amendment of the Social Protection Act. The amendment intends to help inmates adjust to society after release from prison.
The problem of guaranteeing the right for medical treatment in detention facilities has been the most frequent complaint since last year. Inmates cannot receive enough medical treatments, such as health insurance programs, and benefit from medical service, and most doctors do not want to work in the detention facilities because of poor working conditions.
The NHRC will urge Korea to join the UN covenants that have not yet joined, such as "Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-personnel Landmines" and will eliminate the reddrenda (reservation provisions) to adjust the standards on human rights as advanced countries.
The problem about migrant workers" human rights - broker scandals, uprisings of illegal workers due to the failing of industrial trainee system, unpaid wages, and poor working circumstances, has been criticized by domestic and foreign human rights organizations.
Regarding this problem, the NHRC had recommended plans for improvement of the foreign workers system. Nevertheless, fundamental measures have not been taken.
As the information age came to Korean society, eavesdropping on individual cell-phones as well as the censorship of websites has spread. Therefore, the NHRC includes the problem of violation the privacy, such as eavesdropping, among 10 pending problems with the purport that the government should address the problems, and ensure the protection of privacy.
Finally, the NHRC urged the government to prepare measures and cope with bio-ethics problems as part of the human rights movement to recover the human dignity of bio-ethics issues in contemporary society.
The NHRC will continually make efforts to solve the 10 pending issues, establishing the Task Force Team for the amendment of the National Security Act, the Social Protection Act and a solution to the problems of contingent workers.
