Violence against Students at School in February 2017, under which they plan to provide active education for
sexual violence prevention starting from the level of elementary school, reinforce the infrastructure for reporting
and counselling of sexual violence cases against students and strengthen school programs to protect and support
student victims.
15
See Recommendation 124.60 of the Theme E1 in the Annex
16
See Recommendation 124.40 of the Theme F13 in the Annex.
17
See Recommendation 124.38 of the Theme D25 in the Annex.
18
The current Mental Health Act will be renamed to the Act concerning Mental Health Promotion and
Welfare Service Support for the Mentally Disabled on 30 May 2017, in the wake of its revision bill adopted on
29 May 2016. The revised Act includes a new principle that, in taking care of persons with mental disabilities,
community-based care should be preferred to hospitalized care (Article 2 (5) of the revised Act).
19
According to the statistical data of the National Mental Health Commission, voluntary admission
takes up a mere 29.7% of the total cases of hospitalization and it is not likely that the high proportion of
involuntary admission will record a significant decline in the near future. Moreover, on 29 September, 2016, the
Constitutional Court, in the case of petition (2014Heonga9) for unconstitutionality of the provision on
involuntary admission (Article 24 (1) (Hospitalization by a person responsible to provide protection; see below)
of the Mental health Act, ruled that the provision in question is not constitutional. The Constitutional Court
reasoned that the provision is not complemented by sufficient measures designed to minimize infringement on
the personal liberty of mentally disabled persons. It also determined that the right given to the psychiatrist to
judge on the hospitalization concerned might be abused. As this provision remains almost unchanged in the new
version of the Act which was finalized (on 29 May 2016) before the Constitutional Court gave the ruling of
unconstitutionality, the Act should be revised again to incorporate the Court's ruling or, at least, new measures
should be introduced into its subordinate regulations, including the Enforcement Ordinance, to prevent the abuse
or misuse of the provision. Moreover, an adequate system for mentally disabled persons’ return to society needs
to be set up so that they can be provided with a community care program, instead of being hospitalized.
Article 24 (Hospitalization by Person Responsible to Provide Protection) (1)
The director of a mental institution, etc. may, limited to the cases where a psychiatrist judges
that hospitalization, etc. is necessary, hospitalize a mentally disabled person, with the
consent of two persons responsible to provide protection to the mentally disabled person
(with the consent of one person, in cases where one person has the responsibility to provide
protection), and shall receive, from the person responsible to provide protection, a written
consent to hospitalization and a document verifying that he/she is a person with such
responsibility.
20
The NHRCK, in the statement of its views on 29 December 2015, pointed out that the residents'
opposition to the establishment of a vocational training centre for persons with disabilities, which was one of the
heated social controversies at that time, might constitute ‘an act of discrimination against persons with
disabilities’, while stressing that the local government concerned needs to make further efforts to improve
people's understanding and awareness about persons with disabilities in order to prevent recurrence of
discrimination against disabled persons in the local community.
21
On 16 July 2016, the Minimum Wage Commission finalized hourly minimum wage for the year 2017
at KRW 6,470 (KRW 1,352,230 per month in the case of 40-hour work per week). According to the press
release by the Minimum Wage Commission, this hourly minimum wage is a 7.3% rise from the year 2016, and
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