Amended Police Duties Execution Act takes effect July 1

Critics warn law targets specific act, risks patchwork legislation

Members of North Korean defector groups, including the Fighters for a Free North Korea, release balloons carrying leaflets bearing messages such as "Stop nuclear missiles" and "The Kim dynasty will fall" in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, on April 2, 2016. [Yonhap]
Members of North Korean defector groups, including the Fighters for a Free North Korea, release balloons carrying leaflets bearing messages such as "Stop nuclear missiles" and "The Kim dynasty will fall" in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, on April 2, 2016. [Yonhap]

By Kim A-rin, The Herald Business

Police now have explicit legal authority to stop anti-North Korea leaflet launches in border areas.

An amended Police Duties Execution Act that took effect Tuesday gives police a new statutory basis to block activities related to leaflet launches in border regions — including transporting or preparing leaflets — and allows them to restrict access to zones designated as dangerous due to leaflet-scattering activities.

The Korean National Police Agency said the amendment was pursued "to clarify the requirements and procedures for police officers to take restraining measures against leaflet-launching activities that pose serious risks in border areas."

Police had previously relied on the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act to stop leaflet launches near the border. That legal basis was effectively nullified in September 2023, when the Constitutional Court struck down the act's leaflet-ban provisions as a violation of freedom of expression.

In December of that year, the Uijeongbu District Court acquitted a member of a North Korean defector group who had been indicted on charges including obstruction of official duties after clashing with police during a leaflet launch. The court ruled that prosecuting the defendant on obstruction charges — in a case where the confrontation would never have occurred but for the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act — amounted to an abuse of prosecutorial discretion. The ruling effectively put the brakes on police efforts to intervene in leaflet launches.

With the amendment now in force, police have secured at least a nominal legal basis to restrain leaflet-related activities in border areas.

The bill was introduced last September by Han Jeong-ae, policy chief of the Democratic Party of Korea, and co-sponsored by fellow party lawmakers Bok Gi-wang, Lee Jae-jeong, Seo Sam-seok, Hwang Myeong-seon and Choi Gi-sang. The sponsors argued that repeated leaflet launches in border areas "cause military and diplomatic tensions and endanger the lives and safety of residents," adding that police had lacked sufficient legal grounds to intervene on the scene.

Explicitly naming a specific act within the Police Duties Execution Act is highly unusual. Oh Yun-seong, a professor of police administration at Soonchunhyang University, said the act is a general law that broadly governs all police duties, making the singling out of a specific behavior "quite exceptional." He warned that inserting special-law content into a general law invites controversy. He added that questions would arise over why only this particular act receives such treatment, and that if the same logic were applied to other enforcement targets, "there is a risk the legal framework will become a patchwork."

Critics also argue that using the Police Duties Execution Act to regulate conduct already ruled unconstitutional amounts to a legal workaround. A constitutional law scholar who requested anonymity said the amendment "in effect re-legislates the leaflet-ban provisions of the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act through a detour," adding that "the likelihood of a constitutional challenge arising when police actually stop a leaflet launch is very high."

During the revision process, police took note of the fact that while the Constitutional Court struck down the leaflet-ban provisions of the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act, some justices indicated in their opinions that flexible on-site measures based on a police officer's assessment of danger — short of a blanket ban with criminal penalties — could still be permissible.

Those justices said that "even without banning or punishing leaflet launches, if an officer dispatched to the scene judges that there is a risk to the life or safety of citizens, they can issue a warning and, if necessary, directly stop the launch — flexible measures of that kind are available under the Police Duties Execution Act." The provision they cited was Article 6 of the act, which grants police authority to intervene when an imminent threat to safety arises.

Police have also established a procedure allowing officers at the scene to request risk assessments from relevant agencies — including the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Unification — or from the heads of competent administrative bodies. An amended enforcement decree of the Police Duties Execution Act, which also took effect Tuesday, requires agencies that receive such requests to submit their assessments without delay unless there is a specific reason not to do so.

A police official said North Korea's retaliatory trash balloon launches in response to the leaflet campaigns caused damage to border-area residents last year and the year before, and expressed hope that the amendment would "allow us to more effectively guarantee the safety of residents in border areas."

Since the Lee Jae Myung administration took office, a series of laws restricting anti-North Korea leaflet launches near the border have been enacted. In May, a ruling party-led amendment to the Aviation Safety Act passed the National Assembly floor, banning the release of leaflet balloons in no-fly zones including border areas. The change effectively made balloon-based leaflet launches impossible by prohibiting all unmanned free balloons — regardless of weight — from flying in no-fly zones along the border.


arin@heraldcorp.com