군인의 자살과 책임법리의 재정립

The purpose of this article is to strengthen the community's responsibility for soldiers' suicide. In Korean society, which maintains the mandatory conscription system, the ordinary people feel a deep compassion and responsibility for the self-destructed soldiers and their bereaved families, but veterans authorities have maintained a passive attitude toward recognition of state responsibility for suicide in traditional martialist view. In 2012, the Supreme Court's en banc ruling changed the existing legal principles by recognizing state responsibility for accidental suicide of soldiers who did not suffer from mental illness. Several law revisions were made before and after this ruling, but the veterans legislation has not yet reached normative consistency or universality. The paradigm of legal principles on suicide lies in connecting or disconnecting the following two problems. The first problem is whether suicide is a decision of free will or not. The second problem is who should socially support livelihood of the bereaved families. If the ethical or liberal paradigm is to solve the second problem based on the judgment of the first problem, the social or community paradigm is to limit the direct linkage between the first and second problems and focus on the second problem. Instead of thinking of suicide as a matter of guilt, the social or community paradigm identifies the suicide of a soldier as an inevitable risk that the community must take over. In 2022, veterans legislation was revised to strengthen state responsibility for the suicide of compulsory soldiers. It remains to be seen, but it can be evaluated that the Veterans legislation has taken a step from ethical responsibility to community responsibility.