The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said on the 8th that it recommended the Army chief of staff prepare a separate management plan for fixed-term noncommissioned officers linked to the guidelines for managing junior officers.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) launched an ex officio investigation after three suicides occurred last year in an Army infantry division. The investigation found that two of the deceased were fixed-term noncommissioned officers. A fixed-term noncommissioned officer refers to a person who, after completing active-duty enlisted service, is commissioned directly as a sergeant first class without going through the noncommissioned officer candidate course, moving from sergeant to staff sergeant upon commissioning.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) determined in this ex officio investigation that the division in question was negligent in terms of "proactive preventive measures" and "special attention to vulnerable groups." It also stressed that general-officer-level units, such as divisions or independent brigades, must fulfill the state's duty of due diligence.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) also determined that while fixed-term noncommissioned officers are being employed in various ways to address the shortage of junior officers caused by troop reductions, there is a need for detailed management.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) explained that training for the status change from enlisted soldier to officer-level cadre should be improved at the division-level unit so that cohesion can be formed by integrating them with junior officers, and that there is a need to provide a "fixed-term noncommissioned officer job performance guidebook" to systematically inform them of changes after noncommissioned officer commissioning.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said, "The responsibility for managing and protecting service members who perform the duty of defense naturally lies with the state," adding, "As a matter of principle, responsibility for deaths during military service cannot be reduced to an individual's misfortune or the deviance of an individual perpetrator, and the core issue should be whether the state recognized and controlled the risks and could have prevented the harm."