식품안전 관련 규제 및 분쟁 사례의 유형별 분석

Under the Food Sanitation Act, regulations on food safety are largely divided into administrative regulation and criminal regulation. Administrative regulation may be sub-divided into regulations on business permits, preventive regulations, and ex post facto sanction regulations. Preventive regulations and ex post facto sanction regulations are meaningful in regards to the food safety issue. It is understood that criminal regulations mostly include punitive regulations on the sale of harmful food and the violation of permits. However, while the number of administrative cases is over 3,000 and the number of criminal cases amounts to nearly 15,000 each year, the number of Food Sanitation Act cases that can be verified by the Supreme Court decisions is relatively small. This may be due to the fact that most of those who are convicted are petty merchants. Major cases involving the Food Sanitation Act decided by the Supreme Court since 2000 may be largely categorized into the following types: issues regarding the interpretation of the Food Sanitation Act provisions; issues regarding the scope of delegated legislation; issues regarding the scope of discretionary rights exercised by disposition authorities; issues regarding inter-relations between the Food Sanitation Act and other laws; and food safety being a issue in other laws, etc. The analysis of precedents of these types shows that an absolute majority of cases involves issues regarding the interpretation of legislation. This appears to be a natural ramification as the types of acts that were not anticipated at the time of the enactment emerge as a result of social changes. It also confirms that the court interprets the restrictive regulations under the Food Sanitation Act in the direction of extending the protective scope of the public’s life, health and safety.