A threat against the national security in the past was a war based on ideological confrontation in the cold war era. But what approaches the present national security as the biggest threat after the end of cold war is terrorism. Following the 9.11 ter...
A threat against the national security in the past was a war based on ideological confrontation in the cold war era. But what approaches the present national security as the biggest threat after the end of cold war is terrorism. Following the 9.11 terror incident that took place in 2001, terrorism got into the era of new terrorism. Accordingly, all countries of the world newly organized the anti-terrorism law, thereby having coped with terrorism. To enact the anti-terrorism law from 2001 even in our country, many legislative bills were submitted every national assembly. However, the expansion in a right to collect information in the National Intelligence Service failed to be passed for a concern about being likely abused as a means for political oppression including civilian inspection. In the meantime,「ACT ON ANTI-TERRORISM FOR THE PROTECTION OF CITIZENS AND PUBLIC SECURITY」was enacted on March 3, 2016. Hence, this study aimed to examine a problem about the current anti-terrorism law, which was enacted for the first time, and to suggest improvement plan for this.
Prior to beginning this discussion, terrorism will need to be defined, above all. International society is striving to define terrorism. But it is the real situation that there is no agreed definition of terrorism due to a difference in international political position. Still, defining by gathering the core characteristics in common of many definitions, terrorism implies to use or threaten violence against innocent people with the intention of psychological expansion in a fear in order to achieve a political goal. And terrorism is socially harmful action in which this terrorism infringes on the benefit and protection of the law, thereby implying the definition that expressed it as the criminal language for regulating criminally by prescribing this as a crime.
There is a need to regulate crime of terrorism, which is distinguished from general crime, as the independent & integrative single law. First of all, seeing it from the aspect of the possibility for crime of terrorism in our country, our country is being further exposed even to a terror threat simultaneously with getting bigger in international influence upon our country. Also, a terror threat is increasing that results from overseas dispatch of the Korean army and from the friendly diplomatic relations to America. In a situation according to a rise in national exit passengers and an increase in foreigners' stay in the country, a terror threat is being aggregated by a growth in the occurrence of international terror and by the appearance of homegrown terrorism. This crime of terrorism has politically·diplomatically·economically negative impact on our society. Sequentially, in the aspect of needing to enact independent law, it examined the necessity of arranging a new countermeasure due to the appearance of new terrorism by having the country's obligation to protect fundamental rights as a constitutional ground, and of enacting anti-terrorism law in the dimension of participating in cooperation for preventing terror in international society. Especially, the existing guidelines on anti-terror activities were shown to fail to properly function because of being weak in the external binding force as the presidential instructions, and to fail to be systematic in the aspect of the organization composition and of the intelligence activity & the coping activity in the existing coping system.
To examine the contents of the current anti-terrorism law that was enacted by this necessity, it comparatively inquired into the foreign legal cases and the legislative bill related to anti-terrorism in history of our country. In conclusion, what is suggested in foreign legal cases is to arrange a control device, which restricts extensive information collection of national intelligence institution and increases transparency. And it is not to give independent right to collect information to this organization with forming new anti-terrorism organization of having the unified commanding system with integrating information in order to prevent and react to terror effectively. When comparing the current anti-terrorism law with the legislative bills relevant to our country's counter-terrorism, it can be confirmed to be legislated to the direction of corresponding to what the foreign legal cases suggest to some extent. In other words, unlike the previous legislative bills, which were prescribed, so that a counterterrorism center can be in charge of gathering information related to terror with having a counterterrorism center belong to the National Intelligence Service director, the current anti-terrorism law separated a right to gather information by which the National Intelligence Service is in charge of the terror-related information collection with having a counter-terror center belong to the prime minister. And a counter-terrorism human rights protection officer was put as an internal control device. Still, what is regrettable part includes a problem of additional penalty, the insufficient control on information gathering, a problem of effectiveness in a system of a counter-terrorism human rights protection officer, a problem of mobilizing counterterrorism commandos belonging to the Ministry of National Defense, and the absence of special criminal procedure. Improvement plan for this was proposed.
KeyWord: Terror, Terrorism, Crime of Terrorism, Anti-terrorism Law, National Security