A/HRC/25/CRP.1 after the resolution “On Further Strengthening the Work with Various Groups and Strata of the Population” was adopted by the 8th Plenum of the Party’s Central Committee, a new campaign was launched to further refine the Songbun system. Between 1964 and 1969, this work was conducted by specially created groups. This exercise led to more people being exiled, arrested and executed as enemies of the regime.60 121. From the early days of the DPRK, Kim Il-sung and the Workers’ Party of Korea had employed the law and the justice system for purposes of maintaining the Party’s supremacy and suppressing political dissent. In his March 1958 speech “For the Elaboration of the Judicial Policy of our Party”, Kim Il-sung explained that the dictatorial functions of the judicial, procuratorial and public security organs should be enhanced. He said that “the DPRK’s laws should serve as a weapon to champion socialism” and emphasized that “all the workers of the judicial organs should be true to the Party’s leadership and intensify the struggle against counter revolutionaries by firmly relying on the judicial policy of the Party”.61 According to official DPRK sources, Kim Jong-il carried on with the approach of making the justice system, and judges in particular, subject to the instructions of the Workers’ Party of Korea. According to official DPRK sources, Kim Jong-il “saw [to it] that Party committees at all levels were strengthened and their functions and roles were improved in order to intensify Party guidance over … public security work, and judicial and procuratorial work.”62 122. The political function of the law and the justice system has also been entrenched in the DPRK’s criminal legislation, starting with the 1950 Criminal Code, which borrowed language from the Criminal Act of the Soviet Union that was in force under Joseph Stalin. Many of the overt references to the function of criminal law as a tool of political control were removed in subsequent revisions. However, the present criminal law of the DPRK still requires the state to carefully identify friends and enemies of the state in its struggle against “anti-state and anti-people crimes”, and to subdue the small minority of enemies.63 Furthermore, the state is tasked to rely on the power and wisdom of the masses in its handling of criminal cases,64 rather than to impartially apply the law. Moreover, the Criminal Code currently in use defines “Crimes against the state or the people” (called antirevolutionary crimes in the past) in such broad and vague terms that the exercise of any number of human rights can be prosecuted as a crime.65 123. To the extent that the law and the justice system serve to legitimize violations, there is a rule by law in the DPRK, but no rule of law, upheld by an independent and impartial judiciary. Even where relevant checks have been incorporated into statutes, these can be disregarded with impunity. Decisions of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Supreme Leader are generally considered to override formal laws. This principle is reflected in article 11 of the Constitution according to which the DPRK conducts all activities under the 60 61 62 63 64 65 by Jakub Poprocki and translated by Maya Latynski. Available from http://digitalarchive.wilsoncentre.org/document/111732. These were called “620 groups” specially created for this purpose. Andrei Lankov, “The Repressive System and Political Control in North Korea”. Kim Il Sung: Condensed Biography, pp. 207-208. Kim Jong Il: Brief History (Pyongyang, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1998), p. 51. Article 2, Code of Criminal Procedure. Anti-state and anti-people crimes are set out in articles 59 ff. of the Criminal Code and comprise of vaguely worded and extremely broad offenses targeting political activities. Article 3, Criminal Code. See section IV.E.5. 31