북한 형법의 특징과 죄형법정주의

Every country has its own legal system to ensure the integration and maintenance of the state and society and the safe life of the people. Such a legal system not only implicitly expresses the ideology, values, and traditions of each country, but also functions as an index reflecting social phenomena and characteristics. Among the various legal norms constituting the legal system, the criminal law is the legal norm that can invoke sanctions through the strongest coercive force. North Korea has also undergone frequent revisions to its criminal law in order to properly control the flow of changes in international and internal situations through this criminal law system and to devise its own countermeasures in order to protect its own system in the midst of such changes. In North Korea, the ideology of the law, the view of the law, and the resulting legal system are very different from ours. Therefore, efforts to analyze and understand North Korea’s legal system, especially criminal law, play a very important role in understanding North Korea’s situation and reality. In addition, in the event of a change to a close relationship with the integration of the two Koreas, it is possible to foresee various problems that may arise in the process of integration in the criminal law field or cooperation in the criminal field and take countermeasures against legal problems that may arise in the process of inter-Korean exchange and cooperation. It is very meaningful to be prepared to respond appropriately to these situation. In North Korea’s current criminal law system, substantive laws consist of the basic Criminal code and supplementary provision of criminal code. During the revision of the Criminal Code and the adoption of the supplementary provision of criminal code, the retroactive effect prohibition principle was stipulated and the principle of prohibition of analogy interpretation was introduced. In addition, the fact that it has made its own efforts to realize the principle of nullum crimen sine lege through a series of attempts to clarify the individual components is certainly a positive aspect to be evaluated. However, based on the recognition attitude that recognizes the teachings of Kim Il-sung-Kim Jong-il-Kim Jong-un as the highest norm that transcends positive law, it is a strong legal principle based on the natural law ideology that prioritizes the values that society and the state should pursue as the upper principle of positive law. Having a corporate attitude and understanding the criminal law as a tool for realizing class dictatorship can become obstacles to the realization of the nullum crimen sine lege. And the same is true for the fact that, although it has been continuously revised, the meaning is still unclear or the constituent acts themselves are unclear. For this reason, it is also true that there is a critical view that North Korea’s efforts are only a formality and that their motives have nothing to do with efforts to improve human rights. However, even if the evaluation is based on such a critical point of view, some changes are being made in the ideological elements and intensity of the criminal law from a legal point of view. In addition, I think it should be evaluated positively that it is moving in the direction to function as an objective social control norm. Therefore, it is necessary to try to look at these aspects from a relativistic point of view.