SOUTH KOREA. DEATH PENALTY MORE HUMANE THAN LIFE IMPRISONMENT, JUSTICE MINISTRY

the Justice Ministry sent an official letter to the National Assembly opposing lawmakers' moves to abolish death penalty in South Korea.
"More than two thirds of the people are opposed to the abolition of death penalty," the ministry's recent letter to the Judiciary and Legislative Committee of the Assembly said.
"If brutal murderers are not condemned to capital punishment, then it will go against the public's feeling of justice and victims' grudges, and their feeling of private revenge will increase."
Late in 2004, 175 lawmakers, led by Uri Representative Yoo Ihn-tae, proposed a bill to abolish the death penalty. It was currently under review in a legislative committee. The letter criticized lawmakers' plan to introduce terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole to replace the death penalty.  "Life-term imprisonment inflicts unlimited agony on convicted people and is against human rights," the letter said. "It is inappropriate both in theory and in practice."