재판절차에서의 성폭력범죄피해자 보호대책

In June 2007, by the extensive reform on the code of criminal procedure, our country adopted some key elements of American criminal justice system, eg adversary system, direct examination and oral proceedings etc. Moreover, protection of the rights of suspects, defendants and victims has been reinforced since. This article examines various regulations or guidelines on protecting sex-crime victims enforced by the police officers and prosecutors and tries to point out some problems and make some suggestions. Under the new provisions of the code of criminal procedure, the court may have some discretion to protect a sex-crime victim and a sex-crime victim has some rights as follows: When the court examines a sex-crime victim as a witness, the court may permit the victim to sit in company with a reliable person and use video-relay equipments for the examination of the victim to be separated from the offenders and audience; The court may also hold a hearing not open to the public; the victim has a right to inspect public records and copy them. However, practical means to restitute the damages on sex-crime victims are not addressed even under the new code of criminal procedure while overlapping regulations on victim protection from special bills have been adopted, causing confusion and inefficiency. After analyzing current provisions for the sex-crime victim protection and their limitation, in this article, I propose alternatives and complementary measures such as abrogating a statue of limitation in accusing sex-crime offenders and adopting restitutionary remedies in substantive criminal law.