The existing Criminal Act was enacted during the Korean War in 1953.
The regulation of crimes concerning foreign aggression was originated
from a draft of the revision of the Japanese Criminal Act in 1940 so that
both regulations had almost same legal elements and legal punishment.
The draft of the revision of the Japanese Criminal Act was enacted under
influence of the German Nazi Criminal Act to have characteristics of
militarism as well as totalitarianism and to punish a threat against the
government system strictly.
Since enactment of the Criminal Act, as many as 50 years has elapsed
to make great change of politics as well as economy. These days, the
world has become free from ideological confrontation to let each country
maximize its own profits and benefits, and external threat against
countries has overcome level of ‘armed provocation’ triggered by ‘enemy
country’ to be either ‘threat not by enemy country but by foreign
countries’ or ‘outflow of national wealth’ from point of view of actual
profit. In particular, a variety of legal and systematic tools for national
safety under special situation of confrontation between both Koreas were
made to conflict with the crimes concerning foreign aggression of the
Criminal Act. At the moment, the concept of national security and
espionage is needed to make change and to be flexible enough to meet
the realities.
With the problem awareness, the study critically investigated
requirements of the espionage that was important area of foreign
exchange related crimes of the Criminal Act from point of view of
comparison law to interpret and apply laws harmoniously between national
security related law systems such as the National Security Act and the
Criminal Act and to suggest legislative alternatives that could help national
security. In particular, to reform existing law, the study introduced not
only 1992 draft of the revision of the Criminal Act suggested by Special
Committee of the Revision of the Criminal Act organized in 1987 but also
2009 draft of joint revision of both the Korean Criminal Law Association
and the Korean Association of Criminology and considered the drafts as
much as possible from point of view of legislation.