The Ministry of Justice office in Gwacheon, south of Seoul (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — The government will push to create a sentence of life imprisonment without parole to more sternly respond to heinous crimes, such as murder, the Ministry of Justice said Friday.
The ministry said a revision of the Criminal Act, which contains the creation of the life sentence without parole, will be preannounced from Aug. 14 to Sept. 25.
The revision is to divide the life sentence into one for which parole is permitted and the other for which parole is not permitted, the ministry said, explaining the court will be asked to clarify whether parole can be allowed for convicts given a life sentence.
Under the current law, offenders sentenced to life imprisonment could be on parole after 20 years in prison, if certain conditions are met.
The only punishment more severe than life imprisonment is the death penalty, but the nation has not carried out executions since December 1997, leaving a vacuum in the punishment of offenders of atrocious crimes, ministry officials said.
The Supreme Court recently said it is necessary to introduce the life sentence without parole to permanently isolate vicious criminals, according to the ministry.
Such a sentence has already been introduced by the United States and other advanced countries, it added.
Calls for the introduction of the life sentence without parole have further gained public support following the recent back-to-back random stabbing attacks in the Seoul metropolitan area.
A 33-year-old man wielding a knife killed one stranger and injured three others near a subway station in Seoul on July 21, while another man randomly killed one and wounded 13 others in a rampage at a department store in Seongnam, south of Seoul, on Aug. 3.
(Yonhap)
