The editorial points out that the socialist rule of law can only be achieved under “party leadership,” but this does nothing more than recognize that North Korea is under one-man rule because the party simply serves the country`s ruling family. Students have to pay for their desks and chairs in class! Tuition does not cover this. On October 24, 2019, Rodong Sinmun published an editorial stressing the importance of upholding the “rule of law” in the country. Pyongyang has also repeatedly claimed that at least some of the alleged human rights violations, ranging from torture to discrimination to hunger, are in fact illegal under its domestic laws. This makes recent signs of a stronger emphasis on a legal norm fascinating. As usual, North Korea itself has not announced these measures, but the changes point in a clear direction. It seems that there is no legal document that prescribes Kim Jong Un a special place in the system of government. A similar situation existed with his father and grandfather, who ruled North Korea successively from its founding in 1948 to 2011. The current constitution, last amended in August 2019, defines the structure of government in general, with the Supreme People`s Assembly at the head of government. The Assembly, which serves as the official legislature, is responsible for establishing other government institutions and making Cabinet-level appointments and other appointments. However, North Korea considers the statements of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un to be the highest laws in the country. The rules established by the Workers` Party of Korea and the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System then come into importance and then follow the country`s socialist constitution and various other laws. Another calendar in North Korea| Photo: Uritours Strict Customs Regulations in North Korea | Photo: AFP/Representational image All North Koreans living under Kim Jong-un must swear loyalty and obedience to him, his family and the state.
Anything that could be perceived as an insult to Kim`s family is considered blasphemy and will be severely punished. This applies to both immigrants from North Korea and tourists. Anything that can be considered a threat or insult will result in imprisonment or even execution. Many also know the case of U.S. citizen and student Otto Warmbier, who traveled to North Korea as part of a group of guided tourists arrested at Pyongyang International Airport while waiting to leave the country after attempting to steal a billboard from his hotel room. Warmbier was locked in a prison cell and released into a vegetative state, and died shortly after in June 2017. I hope that North Korea will quickly destroy its current system of one-man government and build a system that is truly based on the rule of law in its place. Authoritarian rulers do not allow the final supremacy of the courts, but even a patina of legal function helps cement the rule. However, the most surprising indication of a stronger rule of law in North Korea came on September 29. On that day, the North Korean parliament appointed Cha Myong Nam, of whom nothing was publicly known, as the new president of the Central Court.
However, it became clear that, contrary to usual practice, Cha Myong Nam was not a member of either the WPK Central Committee or the national parliament. Photos showed him without the party pin that members and candidates of the Central Committee must wear. Parliament did not elect him to the Legislative Committee like his predecessor, and the korean report that accompanied it did not bear the title “MP” after his name, which is used for civil servants without seats in Parliament. According to Robert Collins of the Human Rights Committee in North Korea, the specific hierarchy of authority in North Korea is Kim Jong-un`s personal words or guidelines, followed by the Ten Principles for Establishing a Monolithic Ideological System, the wpk Guidelines – in particular, the political guidelines of the wpK Secretariat`s organization and advisory department, the WPK Charter and national civil laws, and finally the North Korean Constitution. While the WPK has maintained the dominant political role within the North Korean party-state, it has served as the leader in primacy over all other political entities. As in other communist political systems, the state and society serve the Party, and civil laws do not bind the Party. [9] The country is considered the most closed country, which is not surprising given the number of terrible laws. The state deprives its citizens of their fundamental rights and imposes strange totalitarian rules on them. Earlier, we told you the story of the strict rules that Kim Jong Un`s wife must follow, and this time we brought you some of the strange laws in North Korea that you had no idea about: the term “rule of law” is not widely used, but it is useful to enforce the efforts of authoritarian states to enforce the laws and rights of their citizens, the liberal democratic principle of the “rule of law”. Authoritarian rulers do not allow the ultimate supremacy of the courts and law over politics. China is a prime example of how the fight against corruption and other injustices has been intensified, while other areas such as freedom of expression are still treated differently. North Korea could now take a similar path.
North Korea never ceases to amaze the whole world. Despite the fact that this country is closed to ordinary tourists and you probably won`t see a photo of there on Instagram, sometimes interesting information about this country comes out. You may be wondering why North Koreans facing such terrible laws don`t flee. And they can`t. Every North Korean citizen is not allowed to leave the country, and anyone who crosses the border without official documents is shot dead by guards. The harshest punishment is for those who try to escape or hide from Kim`s totalitarian regime, and it is almost certainly always death. The following is a guest article by Sayuri Umeda, a foreign legal scholar who covers several East and Southeast Asian countries at the Library of Law of Congress. His previous positions in Custodia Legis include New Era, New Law Number; Sacred cow – meaning of the export rules of the Japanese Wagyu cow; The Japanese criminal justice system from the perspective of the Carlos Ghosn case; discipline judges for “bad tweets”; Engagement according to Japanese law and the rules of the imperial house; and In Japan: the pardon system debated. Strict rules for tourists to North Korea | Photo: AFP It is astonishing that the newspaper points out that North Korea really respects the rule of law when it is clear that only the words of the North Korean leader really matter.
An English translation of the Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People`s Republic of Korea is available on the English version of Naenara (the official web portal of the North Korean government, which is often inaccessible – so we have created an archived version with perma.cc). This version does not contain any information about the changes, but we assume that it is up to date.