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A Review of Legal Requirements for Criminal Complaint - Focusing on National Human Rights Commission Decision Case on Right to Know in Korean Civil Petition -

  • Legal Theory & Practice Review
  • Abbr : LTPR
  • 2024, 12(4), pp.581-619
  • Publisher : The Korea Society for Legal Theory and Practice Inc.
  • Research Area : Social Science > Law
  • Received : November 5, 2024
  • Accepted : November 28, 2024
  • Published : November 30, 2024

Park, Bongkyun 1

1서울경찰청

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The Investigation Guidelines (Presidential Decree) were recently revised and implemented. The main revision is that all complaints will be accepted without rejection. Accordingly, in order to find harmony between protecting the rights of crime victims and suppressing the abuse of complaints, the Police Investigation Rules (Ordinance of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety) were revised, and the National Petition Processing Procedure, which was processed similarly to complaints, was also reorganized. In the context of the change in the National Police Agency’s policy on receiving complaints, the National Human Rights Commission (hereinafter referred to as the “NHRC”) decided that the police violated the Police Investigation Rules and violated the complainant’s right to know by notifying the results after investigating the NHRC report case. There are questions about the NHRC’s decision. First, is the fundamental right related to the notification of the investigation results of a complaint a right to know? Second, can online Civil Petitions submitted to the NHRC and complaints submitted to investigative agencies be evaluated equally under the Criminal Procedure Act? In Chapter 2 of this paper, the right to know is examined in terms of the state’s disclosure of information to individuals. In Chapter 3, we examined the requirements for filing a complaint in terms of protecting crime victims. As a result of the examination, we found that the decision of the NHRC is quite far from legal theory for the following reasons. First, the right to know is a fundamental right of freedom and has the nature of a right of national defense. Therefore, a general right to request information disclosure cannot be derived from the right to know, and it is sufficient to examine the violation of the complainant's right to file a complaint to determine whether an individual right to request information disclosure is recognized. Second, a complaint is a legal act that involves an expression of intent. Therefore, the online complaint of the Korean Civil Petitions violates the method of filing a complaint, so the requirements for filing a complaint are not satisfied. In addition, since no expression of intent was made to the investigation agency, the legal effect of a complaint or complaint does not occur. Therefore, the Police Investigation Rules cannot be applied to the notification of the Korean Civil Petitions investigation results.

Citation status

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