헌재 2016.4.28.선고2015헌마98결정-성범죄자 취업제한-에 관한 고찰

The Constitutional court recently has ruled the restriction on employment of the persons convicted or given a medical treatment A strict punishment is needed for sex offenders targeting children, adolescents and adults. The law contains a number of criminal sanctions including treatment monitoring, personal information registration, disclosure and notification of personal information, location tracking by electronic devices, treatment of sexually transmitted drugs, DNA samples of criminals and employment restrictions, apart from imposing penalties commensurate with responsibility for sex offenders. Prior to the revision, Article 56 of the Act on the Protection of Sexuality among Children and Adolescents provided that sex offenders for children and adolescents could not be employed by the relevant agencies for 10 years on a uniform basis after their execution of their sentences. But the Constitutional Court ruled against the law because it found excessive restrictions on the rights of claimants to work. Some critics say that the decision did not take into account the specific nature of victims of sex crimes and therefore requires a longer period of employment restriction, but I think the Constitutional Court's logic seems reasonable. After the Constitutional Court's ruling on the constitutionality of the law, it removed the dispute over the unconstitutionality by allowing the court to impose a work restriction within a 10-year limit, taking into account the risks of repeat offenses and other special circumstances. In determining the length of employment restriction, the court needs to ensure fairness and predictability among the defendants by preparing a hypothetical ‘employment restriction standard’ such as the sentencing standard of the penal committee rather than the current operation method in which each level court voluntarily sets the period by considering the sentence. Even during the execution of employment restrictions on sex offenders, it is also likely that the government will need to come up with a procedure to exempt them from and terminate their employment restrictions during the remaining period through a review of their risks of repeat offenses.