국가장법의 문제점과 개정방안에 대한 고찰

The State Funeral Law is made for the purpose of contributing to national unification following the death of a person who left a remarkable feat in a nation or a society and became well-respected, by the nation solemnly holding their funerals in reverence. Taking a look at the present condition of successive national and public funerals in Korea, the country has held 15 in total. Among them, there were 2national funerals and 13 public funerals. The latest three funerals were for former Present Choi Kyu-hah on October 2006, former President Roh Moo-hyun on May 2009, and former President Kim Dae-jung on August 2009. The first two funerals for the former presidents were held as a public funeral. The last funeral was held as a national funeral. Ever since the national funeral was held for former President Kim Dae-jung,many problems and controversy stirred up due to the vague and unclear rules and standards of classification specifying the persons entitled to a National or Public funeral. As a result, Korea revised the State Funeral Law on May 30,2011, in order to prevent confusion in the enforcement of the laws and social conflicts, and contribute to national unification. This was to be done by unifying National and Public funerals into State funerals, to make up for operational inadequacy. However, the revised State Funeral Law does not accurately regulate its standards and continues to cause conflict and controversy. Therefore, I will discuss the problems of the current State Funeral Law and make suggestions for a revised bill. First, the State Funeral Law should determine differently the rank of the funeral according to the rank of standing of the deceased person. Holding a State funeral without considering the rank of standing of the deceased person is problematic. Therefore, it is required to revise the State Funeral Law to divide the nation’s funeral into State funeral and Official funeral, in order to differentiate the rank of funeral when persons entitled to a State funeral dies. On the other hand, when a sitting or former president, or a president-elect,who is entitled to a State funeral dies, the law regulates that a State funeral be held as is. When a person other than a sitting or former president, who leaves a remarkable feat in a nation or society, such as a prime minister or speaker, or a president’s wife, it is necessary to make the Official Funeral Law, which deals with Official funerals respectively. Second, there is a lack of regulations in the current law, which fails to allocate a day off during the day of the funeral, in order to allow the State funeral ceremony to be solemnly held in reverence, for the people to express their condolences and to cultivate memorial emotion. Therefore, the State Funeral Law requires a new regulation that requires government offices to designate a public holiday on a State funeral day to allow for mourning. Finally, there is no regulation that deals with the management of the deceased body in the current law. Therefore, the State Funeral Law requires a new regulation that requires that the deceased body of the persons entitled to a State funeral be continuously managed in order to prevent hazards compromising the public’s safety and health when the deceased body is exposed to the public by installing a room where the coffin is placed until the final grave-side service is completed.