[Legal Professional Interview] School Violence Specialist Attorney Cho Young-sam: "We Must Prevent the Judicialization of Education... Lowering the Criminal Responsibility Age Also Requires Caution"

Daeryun School Violence Response Group Head Attorney Cho Young-sam
"Conflicts that could be resolved also head to court... judicialization of education is serious"

The trend of trying to punish school violence and juvenile-offender issues by law is dominant. Attorney Cho Young-sam (head of Daeryun LLC's School Violence Response Group), a former juvenile division judge, thinks differently. He diagnosed that the biggest problem is the "judicialization of education," in which conflicts that should be recovered at school lead to deliberation committees and administrative litigation.

Meeting with on the 28th of last month, Attorney Cho said, "School violence and juvenile offenders are ultimately matters of education," adding, "The core of juvenile justice is not punishment but education and recovery that help students return to school and society."

Appointed as a judge at the Changwon District Court in 1995, he went through the juvenile division and civil and criminal trial divisions, and now, as an attorney, mainly handles school violence cases.

Attorney Cho said, "A judge judges a case based on records accumulated through investigation and hearing, but a defense counsel must, from the early stage of a case, meet the student and guardian, organize the facts, and examine even the growth background and family environment," adding, "A juvenile case is a procedure that requires considering not only the wrongdoing but also how to help the child grow in the future."

◆Forms of school violence have also changed—cyberbullying, deepfakes, and more

Attorney Cho analyzed that the forms of school violence have also changed greatly recently. Unlike the past when physical violence was predominant, most recent cases involve cyberbullying using social networking services (SNS) and school violence utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), such as deepfakes. There is a high possibility of secondary harm, and gathering evidence has also become more difficult.

For this reason, his position is that in school violence cases, understanding the background is more important than the individual act itself. He said, "Even the same words or actions can be evaluated differently in law depending on the prior relationship, the course of the conflict, and peer relationships," adding, "We must examine not only the moment the incident occurred but also what kind of relationship had been formed before that."

◆ The "judicialization of education" stemming from the School Violence Prevention Act, which mandates deliberation procedures

He cited the structural limitations of the School Violence Prevention Act as the cause of the recent increase in school violence administrative litigation. Current law, in principle, requires a deliberation procedure to proceed once a report of school violence is received. Attorney Cho explained that even minor matters all go through legal procedures, and with the added impact of school record entries on college admissions, a structure that leads to litigation has been created.

Once the deliberation procedure begins, there are not a few cases that end with a disposition without the parties having a sufficient opportunity to talk to each other or apologize. Attorney Cho emphasized that to reduce the judicialization of education, the school's discretion must be broadened and relationship recovery activated. In fact, he said there are not a few cases that are concluded without additional disputes after going through the district office of education's relationship recovery program.

As a system for protecting victimized students, he positively evaluated the School Safety Mutual Aid Association.

Attorney Cho said, "The structure in which the School Safety Mutual Aid Association first supports treatment and counseling costs and then exercises the right of indemnity against the offending student's side is a meaningful system that keeps victimized students from delaying treatment due to economic burden," adding, "It is the most meaningful device under current law in that it prioritizes the recovery of the victim."

However, he pointed out that the victim protection system needs to be supplemented when litigation continues for a long time. He said there is a lack of a system to continuously check and manage the principal's emergency separation or no-contact measures.

◆ Lowering the criminal responsibility age based on extreme cases—the basic ideology of juvenile justice comes first

Although public opinion favoring lowering the criminal responsibility age is dominant, to the extent that even the president has acknowledged it, Attorney Cho takes a cautious stance.

He said, "Changing the entire system by looking at only some serious cases can rather bring about greater side effects," adding, "We must first think of the basic ideology of juvenile justice: that the younger the age, the greater the possibility of improvement through education and protection."

He added, "Changing the entire system based on only 1 or 2 extreme cases out of 100 can rather have a greater impact on the majority of adolescents who can be sufficiently reformed through education," adding, "Before lowering the age, we must first examine whether the reform system is functioning properly."

In particular, he cited the overcrowding of juvenile reformatories nationwide and the lack of individualized education programs as the most urgent tasks.

Juvenile reformatories are facilities operated on the premise of education and reform, but realistically the facilities are saturated and individual programs are also insufficient. Simply gathering children in one space makes it difficult to expect a reform effect. He pointed out that only when the reform infrastructure is expanded and individual education is substantiated can the discussion of adjusting the age also be meaningful.

Attorney Cho urged, "Whether it is school violence or juvenile offenders, there are limits to an approach that tries to solve even the domain that education should handle entirely by law," adding, "We must not forget that the goal of juvenile justice is achieved when education does its part as education and law does its part as law."

[Read Full Article]
[Legal Professional Interview] School Violence Specialist Attorney Cho Young-sam: "We Must Prevent the Judicialization of Education... Lowering the Criminal Responsibility Age Also Requires Caution" (Go to Link)