In North Korea, a variety of administrative penalties under the Administrative Penalty Law, the People’s Security Enforcement Law and the Prosecution and Surveillance Law are used as a means of exercising strict social control over the North Korean people. Among these administrative penalties, unpaid labor, re-educational labor and labor training disciplines in particular cannot be simply regarded as a form of administrative restriction.
Rather, they must be understood to exhibit characteristics of punitive action.
also stipulates that children aged 14 or older shall be entitled to assistance from an attorney (Article 50).
North Korean defectors have testified that trials are attended by defense attorneys. Testimonies were also collected stating that defense attorneys spoke in favor of the accused. In particular, it appears that defense attorneys tend to play a more active role when the accused is from a good family background (todae) or pays a bribe. A North Korean defector ○○○ who had worked at a provincial Prosecutors’ Office as a prosecutor until 2013 testified that according to the law, a trial cannot proceed without an attorney present. There are two types of attorneys who participate in trials: private attorneys and public attorneys.
Attorneys belonging to the Central Bar Association are public attorneys, and private attorneys refer to those who have studied law and practice law without being employed. Defense counsels undertake the defense of the accused by talking about the degree of remorse (gaejunseong) the accused displays. Some attorneys have a high success rate, and there are cases where the defense results in a defendant’s acquittal. However, private defense is not accepted in cases of murder or crimes punishable by life imprisonment. If the occurrence of murder is confirmed during trial, the defense counsel is required to stop defending the defendant and resign.218
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A North Korean defector ○○○ who was on trial in 2015 after being forcibly repatriated to North Korea from China testified that he/she was defended by a private attorney in the trial process.
According to the testifier, the attorney actively defended him/her and sought forgiveness, emphasizing that the testifier went to China because he/she was deceived, and the testifier received a lesser sentence than what the prosecutor had proposed.219 A North Korean defector ○○○ who was caught illegally crossing the border in July 2016 said that he/she was able to avoid correctional labor punishment because he/she came from a good family background (todae) and did some “business (saeop).”
According to the testifier, his/her counsel made an argument that the testifier had been devoted to society and community and presented a certificate of state assistance to the judge as evidence, all of which worked in favor of the testifier.220
However, it has been found that in general, even when defense counsels are present during the trial process, they do not provide assistance or actually defend the accused. A North Korean defector ○○○ who went through a trial in Samjiyeon, Yanggang Province in 2015 testified that the counsel and prosecutor had hired a false witness.221 The testifier said that in North Korea,
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NKHR2017000125 2017-11-20.
NKHR2017000005 2017-04-10.
defense counsels work in favor of the state, not defendants. In March 2018, two brothers were accused of murder and the younger brother was caught and sentenced to five years of correction while the older brother ran away to China; it was testified that during the younger brother’s trial, the lawyer did not do much to reduce the sentence the defendant was to receive.222
Perfunctory operation of the right to be assisted by an attorney is also apparent in the case of public trials. That is, even if a defense counsel attends a public trial, in most cases, he/she would not actively plead for the accused.223 According to the North Korean Criminal Procedure Law, the duty of a defense counsel is to “ensure that criminal cases are handled accurately and the rights of a preliminary examinee or a person accused of a crime are guaranteed according to law” (Article 59). In addition, the Lawyer’s Law224 stipulates the rights and duties of defense counsels, stating that “when a lawyer serves as a defense counsel in a criminal case at the request of a preliminary examinee or a person accused of a crime or as commissioned by a court, he/she shall disclose the facts of the case accurately, help judges conduct an accurate analysis and render a fair judgment, and guarantee the rights and interests of the preliminary examinee or the person
NKHR2018000107 2018-10-01.
NKHR2018000014 2018-04-09; NKHR2018000095 2018-08-27; NKHR2019000020 2019-05-07; NKHR2019000097 2019-10-21.
The Lawyer’s Law of the DPRK adopted on 23 December 1993 as Decision 43 of the Standing Committee of the SPA (hereinafter the Lawyer’s Law).
accused of a crime” (Article 12). However, North Korean lawyers are mandated to uphold and carry out the policy of the state or the KWP, rather than protect the rights and interests of individuals. In other words, the role of a lawyer has more to do with persuading or inducing the accused to admit their crimes, rather than defending them.
To receive assistance from a defense counsel, the right of access to a defense counsel must be guaranteed. The North Korean Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that “the selected defense counsel may meet and speak with a preliminary examinee or a person accused of a crime” and “a preliminary examination officer, judge or court shall allow the defense counsel and the preliminary examinee or the person accused of a crime to meet each other upon request” (Article 69). Moreover, the North Korean Lawyer’s Law states that a defense counsel is entitled to converse or correspond with a preliminary examinee or a person accused of a crime (Article 9, paragraph 1). It has been found that the right to access a defense counsel is implemented in some cases, but only in a perfunctory manner. A North Korean defector
○○○ who had been detained in an MPS branch detention center (guryujang) in South Pyeongan Province from September 2016 to February 2017 testified that an MPS officer told him/her to meet the defense counsel during the preliminary examination, but threatened “I will kill you if you do anything foolish.”225 This
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testifier met with the defense counsel 10 days before the trial, and the counsel confirmed with the testifier that the testifier had been beaten and had not been fed well while detained in the center.
According to the testifier, upon hearing what had happened, the defense counsel asked the testifier to pay bribes through his/her family, saying that he would reduce the sentence by presenting such facts to the court. The testifier said that when he/she told the defense counsel that he/she could not afford to offer bribes, the counsel sided with the prosecutor during the actual trial.