NHRCK (Ahn, Kyong-whan, Chairperson) made recommendations to the Attorney General to establish the legal basis for the usage of equipments that are currently being used by the public prosecutor’s office in the event of arrest, to make guidelines for proper usage, maintenance, education, and operation of the arrest equipment, and also to issue a warning to those in the prosecutor’s office who have used such equipment excessively.
The petitioner, Mr. A (male, 40 years old) made an appeal to the NHRCK on September 5, 2007 on the basis that while he was being arrested, prosecutors and criminal investigators used Tasers and batons which resulted in bodily injury that required four weeks of medical treatment.
According to the NHRCK’s investigation, on May 29, 2007, when Mr. A ran out of his house with a knife, three criminal investigators fired Tasers at him that caused him to fall and drop his knife. But the investigators fired at him two additional times and used force to arrest him. During this process, Mr. A suffered bodily injury that required four weeks of medical treatment from rib fractures.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office provides that the use of handcuffs and electric batons is permitted on the basis of provisions in the Public Prosecutor’s Office Regulation and Regulation on the Use and Control of Equipment in Criminal Investigations. However, the NHRCK determined that since the use of equipments during an arrest is one of the most widespread and main exercise of public power that restricts the fundamental rights of the citizen, there has to be clear legal basis and cannot be prescribed in a regulation.
