ID card law requiring fingerprinting is frozen

The Council of Grand Justices yesterday froze a new ID card law requiring fingerprinting, which it said might constitute a violation of human rights.

The council’s action forced the government to jam its brakes on the imminent launch of new ID cards that would have required all citizens to leave fingerprint records when replace their old cards.

The council’s decision comes in the wake of a request filed by ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers on May 30 to annul the fingerprinting provision, Article 8, in the revised Household Registration Law. The suspension will be in place until the council takes a further study and deliver a final verdict on whether the law really is unconstitutional.

The grand justices said the temporary suspension was imposed in order to prevent unnecessary waste as establishing files on fingerprinting would consume a large amount of human and material costs.

If the files later have to be destroyed because of the law’s unconstitutionality, it would be a tremendous waste of administrative resources, the grand justices said.

Cabinet spokesman Cho Jung-tai said the government will respect the grand justices’ ruling, and the renewal of ID cards scheduled to begin July 1 will be put on hold.

Cho said that people over the age of 14 claiming their ID cards for the first time will be issued the old type of ID cards and will not be fingerprinted in the meantime.

After the grand justices make their interpretation, these people will have to go through the entire process again for new ID cards, he said.

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