형사사법절차 단계 별 사법방해 유형 및 제재 방안

Between ‘the goal of finding the substantive truth’ - the most important goal of the national criminal justice system - and ‘the protection of the suspects and defendants’ right to defense’, if a suspect or a defendant abuses his right to defense, it means ‘Obstructing Justice’ and he can be punished for some types of the abuses. The criminal law and case law of South Korea categorize some types of obstructing justice that should be punished. Whether the suspect or defedant’s action to defend himself constitutes an appropriate exercise of his right to defense or an illegal obstruction of justice depends on whether his action is punishable. Under the current legal system of South Korea, the issuance of arrest warrants for suspects and defendants during investigation and trial proceedings and the compulsory summons of witnesses during trial proceedings can be utilized as means to sanction and prevent obstruction of justice by suspects and defendants. But such compulsory measures during investigation and trial proceedings, which don’t directly intend to  sanction against obstruction of justice itself, can’t be effective and appropriate means to regulate obstruction of justice generally, due to the nature of each measure and its limited application requirements. The current legal system of South Korea does not provide direct sanctions for some types of actions obstructing justice, the types severely disturbing the discovery of substantive truth in investigation and criminal process. Thus the legal system appears to be excessively biased toward protecting the suspects and defendants’ right to defense. For instance, the criminal law of South Korea does not have provisions for punishing suspects who destroy personal and physical evidences. In spite of this, case law of South Korea takes the position of punishing some types of suspects’ destroying evidences, regarding those as the abuses of suspects’ right to defense, and the development of such case law shows that the criminal law of South Korea doesn’t have enough provisions for punishing suspects’s actions of obstructing justice. The gap between the position of criminal law and that of case law, regarding whether to punish suspects' actions of destroying personal and physical evidences, causes an imbalance in regulating each similar type of actions destroying evidences. The absence of criminal punishment provisions for the types of obstructions of justice, which severely obstruct the discovery of substantive truth hinders finding crimes in criminal process and causes unbalanced in regulating the types of actions obstructing justice. And this makes the situation in which national criminal justice system is incapable of restraining crimes and people can’t expect the function of the system. Exactly for this reason, the introduction of new provisions for punishing types of actions obstructing justice by suspects and defendants, that severely obstruct the discovery of substantive truth is justified. Considering the current judicial environment of South Korea in which the legitimacy of investigative activities of the prosecution and police is checked sufficiently by the judges and the prosecutors, it is expected that the courts and the prosecution will interpret and apply the elements of new punishment provisions for obstruction of justice in a balanced and restrained manner in relation to the guarantee of suspects and defendants’ right to defense. Thus, the legislation supplementing and correcting the absence of proper punishment and the imbalance in sanctions for the actions obstructing justice will have a positive influence on the criminal justice system of South Korea to function properly. The general public, especially the crime victims often require that the criminal justice system of our country should achieve judicial justice, through operating the procedures for investigating crimes strictly. In this perspecive, legislating additional punishment provisions for severe obstruction of justice is needed urgently, and the legislation can be delayed no longer