수사의 단서로서의 불심검문의 내용과 한계

Abstract

As words spread that there is a study for possible enactment of misdemeanor penalty for rejection of random questioning by police, the controversies on the justification of producing criminals while disregarding people’s autonomy and democratic abilities has not settled down. Random questioning is one of the most important duties of police since itsrole in crime prevention and criminal arrest cannot be ignored. In reality, one cannot deny that the random questioning increase people’s trust in the public power by settling unrest in crime and upkeep and stabilize social order. But if the random questioning is abused, people’s freedom and bodily restraint will result in breach of human rights. Breach of human rights will be evident especially when the random questioning is indiscriminately performed for the sake of efficiency and convenience of investigation. Nevertheless, public power of police and human rights does not always exclude each other but rather could be in harmony. For this harmony, preparation and consistent application of a legal control system which will prevent abuse of authority in the performance of public power and continuous oversight of police actions are required to protect people’s human rights. It is advisable to have clear regulations in random questioning by conscripted police, simultaneoussearch and inspection, request for identification, and possession of weapons and so forth. Furthermore, equipped with search and inspection equipments that will assist in effective random questioning will provide effective random questioning operations, effective and systematic random questioning rather than frequent operations will increase the sense of duty of the police officers, and promoting the circumstances that can be fully understood by the people who is subject to the random questioning will maximize the effects of random questioning. In this regard, random questioning operated directly by regular police officers rather than conscripted police who is not familiar and lacks police duties, could be one of the solutions.