The government will amend the law so that in the future, placing unreported signboards on the street will result in fines instead of criminal penalties.
The 'Economic Penal Provisions Improvement Task Force' (hereinafter TF), involving the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the Ministry of Government Legislation, announced on the 12th the '3rd Economic Penal Provisions Improvement Agenda' including these contents.
This time, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, in collaboration with the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, analyzed the 국민신문고 (People’s Petition) database to focus on discovering regulations closely related to daily life, directly reported by self-employed and small business owners.
They set keywords related to penalties such as 'penalty, imprisonment, fine,' industry keywords such as 'small business owner, self-employed, store,' and hardship keywords such as 'complaint, burden, livelihood, difficulty,' and used an algorithm to extract and verify 20,000 related petitions.
There was also Article 18, Paragraph 2 of the Outdoor Advertising Act, which punishes those who display unreported advertisements in urban areas with a fine of 5 million won. The TF decided to revise this to an administrative fine of up to 5 million won. Advertisements related to political parties or politicians are not subject to reporting under current law, so they were not included in this agenda.
A provision of the Movie and Video Act that punishes those who allow youth who are not permitted to watch restricted films to enter was also discovered through 국민신문고. The TF plans to revise the regulation, which currently imposes imprisonment of up to 3 years or a fine of up to 30 million won, to imprisonment of up to 2 years or a fine of up to 20 million won.
Based on the Ministry of Government Legislation’s standards for drafting laws, 15 provisions that are administrative obligations but excessively regulated by criminal penalties, and 10 provisions that have become obsolete with no cases of indictment in the past five years according to the Ministry of Justice’s Supreme Prosecutors’ Office database analysis, totaling 46 provisions, were included in this agenda.
The provision of the Capital Market Act that punishes those who use the name Comprehensive Financial Company, Fund Brokerage, or similar names with imprisonment of up to 1 year or a fine of up to 30 million won will be converted to an administrative sanction imposing a fine of up to 10 million won.
In the case of the Seafarers Act, shipowners who fail to pay retirement allowances or provide paid leave in lieu of overtime pay are punished with imprisonment of up to 2 years or a fine of up to 20 million won. The TF plans to strengthen the penalty to imprisonment of up to 3 years or a fine of up to 30 million won, while applying the principle of non-prosecution upon victim’s withdrawal of complaint.
The TF, led by the Ministry of Government Legislation, will begin the batch amendment process for the 3rd agenda and plans to promote the 4th agenda by the first half of next year.
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