The Special Investigation Headquarters of the police, which is investigating the Itaewon disaster, announced that it is applying the legal principle of tying together suspects from various government agencies suspected of manslaughter on the job as co-perpetrators.
The special edition said at a briefing held on the morning of the 9th, "From the beginning of the investigation, the suspects who were responsible for the primary safety management in the disaster formed the principle of co-principal for negligent crimes."
It is judged that the negligence of several suspects combined led to the disaster.
The crime of manslaughter in the workplace can be punished only when the causal relationship in which the negligence of the suspect causes death or injury to the victim is acknowledged.
However, in large-scale incidents and accidents such as the Itaewon disaster, there is a limit in that it is difficult to conclude that the disaster occurred only through the negligence of one specific suspect.
If the negligence of each suspect is combined and a co-perpetrator is recognized, it can be judged that he caused the disaster, which increases the likelihood of guilt.
Co-principal of a negligent crime means that two or more people are recognized as accomplices even if they did not conspire to commit a crime, but it is acknowledged that they caused the result of the crime through joint negligence.
In particular, it was found that the special edition is reviewing the precedent for negligent criminal joint criminals by referring to the collapse of the Seongsu Bridge in 1994.
At the time, the Supreme Court recognized 16 people, including Dong-A Construction officials and Seoul city officials, as co-perpetrators of the Seongsu Bridge collapse accident, and judged that they could not escape joint responsibility.
For the safety of the bridge, thorough maintenance and management by supervisory officials must be carried out from the construction of the builder.
In the case of the Sampoong Department Store collapse in 1995, the Supreme Court also recognized the people involved as co-perpetrators of negligent manslaughter on the job, saying that the cause of the collapse was not limited to one, but was caused by a combination of negligence in maintenance and management from the construction plan to completion.
The special version is in the position that these legal principles can be applied to the Itaewon disaster as it is.
An official from the special edition said, "If the Itaewon disaster is also responsible for the deaths of 158 victims only through the negligence of Lee Im-jae, former Yongsan Police Station chief, it can be difficult to prove guilt." If the disaster occurred by overlapping, it would be a little easier to prove a causal relationship."
However, the jurisprudence of co-principal of a negligent criminal requires a detailed application of the jurisprudence in that the responsibility for a disaster can become excessively large.
In the Sewol ferry disaster in 2016, the Supreme Court judged that the captain and crew of the Sewol ferry were not recognized as joint criminals for manslaughter at work.
It was judged that it was too much to admit responsibility for the overall result with only a minor negligence if some sailors who were negligent were admitted to the co-principal.
The intention was that the severity of each suspect's negligence was clearly different, so it was appropriate to ask for each responsibility separately rather than punishing them together as joint responsibilities.
The special edition also plans to focus on distinguishing between suspects who can be tied as co-perpetrators of negligent crimes and those who are not.
(Photo = Yonhap News)