NHRC issues recommendation to Minister of Ministry of Construction and Transpotation(MCT) to amend the Guarantee of Automobile Accident Compensation Act (GAACA) Enforcement Decree; MCT currently promoting amendment
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) confirmed that unequal insurance payments to male and female automobile accident victims suffering scarring on the face constitutes discriminatory conduct violating the right to equality and issued a recommendation to the Minister of Construction and Transportation to amend article 3 of the Enforcement Decree of the Guarantee of Automobile Accident Compensation Act (ED-GAACA), which stipulates unequal compensation for male and female accident victims.
The recommendation follows a NHRC investigation into a complaint filed by Mr. Kim, 43, relating to an insurance payment of 3,000,000 KRW he received to compensate for Level-12 facial scarring incurred in a May 2002 traffic accident. Noting that according to the ED-GAACA, a woman with similar facial scarring could be awarded a Level-7 insurance claim, about 12,000,000 KRW, Kim filed his complaint against the Minister of the Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MCT), which drafted the ED-GAACA.
The ED-GAACA regulations stipulating differential treatment despite similar degree of scarring are as follows. According to table 2 (under ED-GAACA article 3: clause 1: paragraph 3), “a woman suffering conspicuous scarring affecting physical appearance” shall be awarded Level-7 compensation, and “a woman suffering scarring affecting physical appearance” shall be awarded Level-12 compensation; in contrast, the same regulation stipulates that “a man suffering conspicuous scarring affecting physical appearance” shall be awarded Level-12 compensation, and “a man suffering scarring affecting physical appearance” shall be awarded Level-14 compensation.
When interviewed in the course of the NHRC investigation, MCT revealed, “We acknowledge that it is problematic to differentiate between women and men with regard to life obstacles owing to scarring, and consequently with the practice of setting different ceilings on compensation; thus, we are in the process of promoting amendment of the ED-GAACA.”
The NHRC gave full consideration to the intentions—based on the conventional wisdom that women are far more vulnerable than men to psychological damage and reduced range of job opportunities when physical appearance is altered by scarring—behind the ED-GAACA policy of placing women in a higher compensation level than men with the same degree of scarring. However, the NHRC found no reasonable basis in medicine for such differential treatment and conspicuous facial scarring inflicts suffering and damages on both women and men. Additionally, the investigation found that similar regulations, such as the Enforcement Decree of the State Compensation Act and the Enforcement Decree of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act, do not place women and men in different compensation-ceiling gradations. Instead, such regulations use gender-blind wording specifying that given regulations apply to “persons left with scarring affecting physical appearance.” Taking all such evidence into consideration, the NHRC concluded that such differential treatment constituted discriminatory conduct contravening the right to equality with no rational basis for justifying such violation.
In a related case, involving article 31: table 2 of the Enforcement Decree of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act, the NHRC issued a recommendation for the relevant articles to be amended to eliminate differential compensation to women and men suffering facial scarring from industrial accident. The Ministry of Labor complied with the NHRC recommendation, amending the relevant article in May 2003 to read, “persons left with scarring affecting physical appearance.”
