‘노인학대범죄의 처벌 등에 관한 특례법(안)’상 노인학대범죄의 처벌에 대한 검토와 개선방안

As our society became rapidly an aging society, problems of the aged are increasing in numbers. Among them, the aged abuse comes to the fore as a serious problem of the society. Therefore, on 29 January 2004, in amendment of 「Welfare of the Aged Act : WAA」, after making a legal basis on prevention and measures of the aged abuse, the government revised and complemented it three times. Also it established the aged protection institution and the policy for them were made and enforced to protect the aged abuse victims according to international standards. However, questions are being asked regarding effectiveness of measures for prevention of the aged abuse and protection of the aged abuse victims. Some People think that such questions result from insufficiency of the existing provision of WAA as to the aged abuse. For this reason, recently in National Assembly, there was a movement for enactment of 「Act on Special Cases concerning the Punishment, etc. of the Aged Abuse Crime」 which is an independent Act regarding the aged abuse. Therefore in this paper I critically examine substantial law parts of this Bill from the perspective of the criminal law and suggest points to modify and to make up this Bill. To make this Bill to function as a law for the protection of the aged victims and the improvement of assailants, I suggest (i) a clarification of an age norm of the aged and types of the aged abuse, (ii) a reduction of object of the aged abuse crime and an extension of subject of the abuse, (iii) a deletion of aggravated punishment provinces against the aged abuse crime, (iv) a reduction of statutory punishment of task performance obstruction, (v) a preparation of security devices for performance of condition in the conditional suspension of indictment by prosecutor, (vi) a preparation of devices to prevent a recurrence of abuse when given a suspended sentence.