Supreme Court Sentencing Commission Significantly Strengthens Sentencing Guidelines for Industrial Safety and Health Crimes... Recommends Up to 10 Years and 6 Months Imprisonment (Comprehensive)

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] The Supreme Court has significantly strengthened sentencing guidelines to allow for a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and 6 months when an employer violates safety and health obligations at industrial sites, resulting in the death of a worker.

This move is interpreted as a measure to prevent industrial accidents by reinforcing employer responsibility, in line with the passage of the "Serious Accidents Punishment Act," which strengthens penalties for companies and executives when serious accidents such as deaths occur.

According to the Supreme Court on the 12th, the Supreme Court Sentencing Commission (Chairperson Kim Young-ran) approved a revision of the sentencing guidelines for "negligent homicide and injury · industrial safety and health crimes" at its 107th plenary meeting held via video conference the day before.

The Sentencing Commission raised the basic sentencing guideline for crimes of violating safety and health obligations causing death under the Industrial Safety and Health Act from the previous imprisonment of 6 months to 1 year and 6 months to imprisonment of 1 year to 2 years and 6 months.

Additionally, if there are special aggravating factors, the recommended sentence was increased to imprisonment of 2 to 5 years, and if there are two or more special aggravating factors, imprisonment of 2 to 7 years. For repeat offenders who committed two or more similar crimes or reoffended within 5 years, the maximum sentence can be up to 10 years and 6 months.

The Sentencing Commission also excluded "substantial deposit" from mitigating factors in industrial safety and health crime sentencing factors, making it impossible to reduce sentences on the grounds of deposits, thereby emphasizing "prevention of industrial accidents" over "post-incident remediation." Furthermore, "cases where similar accidents repeatedly occur" and "cases with multiple victims" were established as special aggravating factors to consider both the recurrence and scale of accidents as important sentencing considerations.

On the other hand, voluntary surrender or internal whistleblowing that contributed to revealing the full extent of the crime was set as a special mitigating factor to encourage cooperation from those involved in the crime.

In addition, the Sentencing Commission approved sentencing guidelines for the first time for "residential intrusion crimes" and "environmental crimes." In particular, environmental crimes were broadly categorized into ▲waste and construction waste crimes ▲air environment crimes ▲water environment crimes ▲marine environment crimes ▲livestock manure crimes, and detailed sentencing ranges from 4 months to 4 years were presented according to statutory penalties.

For residential intrusion, basic sentencing ranges of 4 months to 2 years were presented for residential intrusion, refusal to leave, and residential body searches, followed by aggravated sentencing guidelines of up to 3 years and 6 months for special residential intrusion, repeat residential intrusion, and repeat special residential intrusion.

The Sentencing Commission plans to hold a public hearing on the sentencing guidelines via a non-face-to-face video conference on the 5th of next month, and finalize the guidelines at the plenary meeting on March 29.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.