3) and arrest of flagrant offender (art. 212). In principle, arrests that restrain
an individual’s body shall be warranted, so emergency arrests should be
conducted on an exceptional basis in accordance with a strict interpretation
of the requirements.
98.
The Korean governments revised the “Criminal Procedure Act” in
2007 in relation to the Committee’s concluding observations on the second
periodic report of Korea in 2006. Since then, the government has been
strictly restricting emergency arrest and trying to prevent its abuse, and the
number of persons under emergency arrest has declined to 25, 432 in 2007,
10,628 in 2015 and 5,014 in 2019. 20
99.
However, the NHRCK has expressed its concerns about infringement
of the body’s freedom by abuse of emergency arrest and urged the police to
strictly abide by the urgent requirements – no time for warrant issuance – for
its illegal emergency arrest21.
100.
There are also criticisms of abuse of emergency arrests since warrants
were not requested after unreasonable emergency arrest of a suspect. In order
to confirm this, it is necessary to examine the proportion of persons who are
released after the arrest without request for or issuance of warrant, but it is
difficult to find the latest statistics.
Questions
20 Korean National Police Agency, Korean Police Crime Statistics in 2019.
21 Emergency arrest of the accused whose escape concern is unclear based solely on investigation
of complaint, and emergency arrest of a suspect who was voluntarily present at the police station
and under investigation in the interrogation recording room
35