National Human Rights Commission of Korea Chairperson Ahn Chang-ho urged the abolition of the death penalty ahead of the World Day Against the Death Penalty (Oct. 10).
Ahn issued a statement on the 9th and said, "Human life, once lost, can never be restored and is absolute, exchangeable for nothing; therefore, the right to life is the right that underpins all fundamental rights."
Ahn noted, "The death penalty is contradictory in that it forbids killing for everyone while the state denies the right to life to achieve public objectives," adding, "It risks infringing on the right to life and abandons the penal objective of rehabilitating offenders."
He also mentioned the risk of executions stemming from the possibility of wrongful convictions. He explained, "As can be seen in the case of the National League for Democracy rebuilding incident, in which death sentences were carried out in 1975 and not-guilty verdicts were returned on retrial in 2007, it is necessary to consider that in cases of execution due to misjudgment, that life cannot be restored."
He added, "Crime prevention, a duty of the state, must be achieved not by depriving the people of their right to life, but through policymaking and building social infrastructure," and, "Taking the World Day Against the Death Penalty as an opportunity, I hope our society can walk the path of protecting human rights together with the international community."
In Korea, no executions have been carried out for about 30 years since Dec. 30, 1997. Because of this, the international community classifies Korea as a "de facto abolitionist state." The Constitutional Court is currently reviewing whether provisions such as Article 41, Item 1 of the Criminal Act, which stipulates the death penalty system, are unconstitutional.
According to Amnesty International, as of the end of last year, 113 countries had abolished the death penalty.