About 57 percent of lawmakers - 135 out of 237 - say...

About 57 percent of lawmakers - 135 out of 237 - say they want the death penalty to be abolished. About 40 percent said the harshest punishment should be retained while the remaining eight did not disclose their positions.
Among the 123 ruling Uri Party lawmakers who replied to the survey, conducted by The Korea Herald to mark its 51st anniversary on August 15, about 74 percent were for abolition. Eight members from the small opposition Democratic Labor Party also unanimously supported repeal of capital punishment.
But in the conservative Grand National Party, the largest opposition political group in the nation, considerably more respondents called for retention of the death penalty.
Among the 96 GNP respondents, 63, or about 66 percent, said the death penalty should be maintained, while 30, or 13.2 percent, supported abolition.
While there are 58 people on death row in Korea, no one has been executed here since 1998.
Lawmakers who want to retain the punishment believe capital punishment, or an eye-for-an-eye retribution, is necessary to prevent heinous crimes. They also say Korean society is "not yet ready" to do without it, considering public sentiment, especially in view of the case of confessed serial killer Yoo Young-chul who said just a few weeks ago that he murdered 21 people in 10 months.
Abolitionists argue the death penalty has shown no visible effect whatsoever in crime prevention. Since the possibility of misjudgment and abuse of the death penalty by whoever has the power can never be fully eliminated, they think it should be abolished to avoid "institutionalized murder" of the innocent. Basically, abolitionists feel that an eye-for-an-eye does not serve justice.
Uri Party Rep. Yoo In-tae is currently framing a bill to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole.
He is working with a group of religious leaders and lawyers who have led the anti-death penalty movement for more than a decade.
"We plan to submit the bill in September's regular session of the assembly. In the meantime, we will hold public hearings," Yoo told the Herald.
A similar proposal was submitted three years ago, but the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee failed to approve it.
The committee is currently composed of eight Uri Party members, six GNP and one DLP. A news report said last month that at least eight members of the committee favor abolition.