대한민국의 사법개혁 현황과 전망

권순일 사법발전재단 2017 사법 Vol.1 No.39

This paper begins with an in-depth review of the progress made during the decades that preceded the current state of Korean judicial reform. Specifically, the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s are examined, and prospects for future judicial reform are also discussed. Through bipartisan agreements and the national referendum in 1987, a Constitutional amendment was ratified as a result of the democratization movements of the 1980s, prompting vigorous discussion of judicial reform in the 1990s. Voices for judicial reform intensified when President Kim Young-sam took office in 1993 with the agenda of instituting what was referred to as a “civilian government.” During this time, there was strong public demand for “judicial democratization,” which called for the elimination of non-democratic and authoritarian elements within the judiciary and a guarantee of civil rights. Comprehensive judicial reform was initiated when the judiciary itself created the Committee on Judicial System Development. This occurred after Chief Justice Yun Kwan took office in 1993, two years before the centennial of the modern Korean judicial system. The ensuing accomplishments included the establishment of specialized courts, such as the Patent Court and the Administrative Court, and the introduction of substantive review of arrest and detention warrants. President Roh Moo-hyun’s administration, inaugurated in 2003, called itself a “participatory government” and encouraged participation in government activities. The President and the judiciary organized the Cooperative Committee on Judicial Reform and the Presidential Committee on Judicial Reform. Through these vigorous reform initiatives, citizen participation in criminal trials was introduced through the adoption of a form of jury system. In addition, the Sentencing Commission was set up in the Supreme Court, and the law school system was launched, bringing drastic changes to the legal system. In 2010, the National Assembly launched the Special Committee on Judicial Reform with bipartisan support. The Committee presented various reform measures, including the law clerk system and a gradual shift from the current judicial appointment system to a recruitment system based on legal experience. Since Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae took office in 2011, efforts have been made to continue to improve the Korean judicial system in diverse ways, including the appointment of judges from among legal professionals with a certain number of years of legal experience; increased promotion of communication between courts and the public; consolidation of jurisdictions of patent examination cases and patent infringement cases; opening of the Judicial Policy Research Institute; and creating of the bankruptcy court. In summary, the judicial reform measures of the past twoplus decades have focused primarily on the following three goals: (1) improving litigation procedures; (2) increasing citizen participation in the judicial process, and (3) promoting judicial expertise. Remaining challenges include: (1) improving the final appeal system; and (2) enhancing public confidence in the judiciary further. 본고는 대한민국의 사법개혁의 진행경과를 1990년대, 2000년대, 2010년대 등 시기별로 나누어 구체적으로 살펴보고, 그동안 추진한 사법개혁의 성과를 정리하며, 향후 추진할 과제에 관하여 검토한다. 대한민국은 1980년대 민주화운동의 결과 1987년 여·야합의 및 국민투표를 통해 헌법 개정이 이루어졌고, 그 직후인 1990년대부터 사법개혁에 관한 논의가 본격적으로 시작되었다. 1993년 문민정부를 표방한 김영삼 대통령이 취임하면서 사법에 있어서의 비민주적·권위주의적 요소를 타파하고 국민의 기본권을 보장하여 민주적 질서를 확립할 수 있는 ‘사법의 민주화’에 대한 요청이 높았다. 1993년 윤관 대법원장의 취임 이후, 사법부는 근대사법 100주년에 즈음하여 사법부 주도로 ‘사법제도발전위원회’를 구성하여 사법제도 전 영역에 걸쳐 사법개혁 작업을 시작하였고, 그 결과 특허법원과 행정법원이 설치되고, 구속영장실질심사제도가 도입되는 등의 성과를 거두었다. 2003년 참여정부를 표방한 노무현 대통령의 취임 이후 대통령과 사법부가 협력하여 구성한 ‘사법개혁위원회’와 ‘사법제도개혁추진위원회’의 적극적인 활동을 통하여 국민의 형사재판참여제도, 양형위원회의 설치, 법학전문대학원 제도의 도입 등과 같은 획기적인 변화를 이끌어낼 수 있었다. 2010년에는 국회 ‘사법제도개혁특별위원회’가 구성되었고, 그 논의에 따라 재판연구원제도가 도입되고 단계적 법조일원화가 시행되었다. 2011년 양승태 대법원장 취임 이후에도 법조일원화와 평생법관제의 확립, 특허소송 관할집중, 사법정책연구원 설립, 도산전문법원 설치 등 사법제도 개선 노력을 하였다. 이처럼 지난 20여 년간 추진된 대한민국의 사법개혁은 ① 재판제도의 개선, ② 국민 참여의 확대, ③ 전문성 강화 등 3가지 측면에서 상당한 성과를 거두었다. 최근에는 상고심 제도 개선, 국민의 사법신뢰도 제고 등이 남겨진 과제로 논의되고 있다.

법조계의 전관예우 방지를 위한 법제도 고찰

박언경 ( Park Eon-kyung ) 제주대학교 법과정책연구원 2020 法과 政策 Vol.26 No.2

‘The Former Post Courtesy,’ a kind of privileges of former government officials, unique phenomenon which exists due to the Korean judicial system, is a vice that should be abolished to cause distrust of the people. Although some judges or prosecutors argue no courtesy practice, its existence can be affirmed by awareness of legal specialists as well as public awareness, but also by established institutional preventive measures under the ‘Atorny-At- Law Act’ to prevent the courtesy. In addition, in the personnel hearing of the chief justice candidates of the Supreme Court in 2017, the existence of the courtesy is confirmed in that the candidates mentioned the fundamental eradication of the courtesy practice. The courtesy expands the vice that favors the retired officials of the executive branch and the legislative branch as well as the judicial branch, and can promote the corruption and integrity and unfair business practices of public officials, thereby discriminating the people. It can be extended to problems that violate the rights of equality under the Constitution. The article is to propose institutional improvement to prevent the courtesy practice. The article, firstly, confirmed the existence of the courtesy by introducing the legislative process and the current legislation to prevent the practice. The article, secondly, envisioned the weak points of current legislation and proposed plans to improve the system to prevent the courtesy practice. The plans includes the introduction of life-time judicial system, the registration restriction on ex-official lawyers, the restriction on the ex-official lawyers’accepting cases, and the obligation to submit the resignation data of the ex-official lawyers. It should be recognized that these privileges of former government officials are no longer an abstract problem of law and culture or an unclear tradition of compassionism, but a problem that continues due to institutional limitations. Therefore, legislation need be actively introduced to overcome the current limitations.

전관예우의 근절책

신평 경북대학교 법학연구원 2013 법학논고 Vol.0 No.43

The preferential treatment for retired public officers is rampant in doing businesses which are related to his or her former jobs, still in Korea. It is deep-rooted in Korean culture itself. Korea has had a unitary culture and simple race in cultural meaning, which has ordinarily the subculture of nepotism. In humankind history, there has been no such a nation as Korea whose racial and culture composition is so simple. So its tendency to nepotism is particular even compared to other tradition strong countries, for example Japan or European nations. And the preferential treatment has flourished even in judiciary system, whose essential part is fairness. Therefore it has benefited lawyers as retired judges and prosecutors, resulting in the corruption of courts and prosecutor’s offices. At the same time, brokers dealing with judicial matters, whom advanced nations’ people have never heard of, have continuously existed and exploited the preferential treatment for retired public officers. For so many years, Korean people have shouted out its evil effects, tried to eradicate it, but the efforts has almost failed in vain. This article’s main subject is to root it out successfully from Korean society. This article gets the start from saying that rooting out the preferential treatment for retired public officers is very difficult. Maybe the failure of previous efforts were caused from not recognizing the difficulty. That is, the efforts were focused on easy-going or superficial solutions. We have to be more serious and more patient to cope with it. I tried to seek out several ways to root out the treatment. I admit my proposals are not sufficient. I just wish them to be useful in discussing the matter and to be a start of sincere efforts to deal with it. I proposed, in advance, to write in the concept of judicial democratization that includes the openness of judicial process related to the eradication of nepotism or judicial neutrality into the Korean constitution. And it might be needed to declare abolition of statute of limitations of the crimes of public officers deliberately failing in dealing with judicially disputed matters or the suspending of it during his or her term of office. The special office for investigations against high ranking officials comprised of judges and prosecutors may have to be installed if we think of particular Korean circumstances in which predominant status of the officials, especially judges and prosecutors, is guaranteed. After them, I suggested the reinforcement of the disciplinary system of judges and prosecutors, which some people say has worked even to conceal the faults. And the heightening of authority of the commission of lawyers’ ethics, which is struggling with how to deal with faults of lawyers, may have some effect. If the time would come, when we don’t hear anything about the faulty treatment, Korean society already has entered in advanced society, which Koreans are yearning for after accomplishing economic miracles. And we could have a society of real rule of law in its true meaning. 전관예우는 우리 사회의 심층, 문화에 바탕을 둔 채 큰 작용력을 가진 연고주의가 발현된 것이다. 사회 전 분야에 걸쳐 나타나는 것이나, 분쟁에 대한 엄격한 판정을 생명으로 하는 사법분야에서 이것이 나타나면 그 폐단이 두드러져 보인다. 엉뚱하게도 아직 사회의 일각에서는 이를 부정하는 견해도 없지는 않으나 여러 징후로 보아 이는 엄연히 존재하는 실체이다. 전관예우현상을 해결하기 위해서는 우선 전관예우가 우리의 연고주의 문화에 뿌리를 박은 것으로서 그 근절이 대단히 어렵다는 전제에 서야 한다. 지금까지 그 실체에 대한 분명한 인식의 결여로 몇 가지 간단한 대책으로 이를 없앨 수 있다는 안이한 인식에 젖어왔다. 우리가 이러한 잘못된 인식을 버리고, 전관예우의 근절이 정말 어렵다는 생각에 이를 때 비로소 전관예우에 대한 해결의 방도가 보이기 시작하는 것이다. 이 논문에서 전관예우의 근절책 몇 가지를 들었다. 개헌의 기회에 사법의 민주화 혹은 사법의 중립성을 헌법에 명시하는 방안, 국가공무원에 의한 부당한 사건처리의 공소시효 배제 혹은 중단의 방안, 고위공직자비리수사처의 신설방안, 판․검사 징계제도의 충실화방안, 법조윤리협의회 권한의 강화방안 등을 들었다. 이러한 방안들은 서로가 조금씩 다른 측면에서 힘을 발휘할 수 있을 것이다. 하지만 전체적으로 어울리며 더 큰 효과를 낼 수 있으리라고 본다. 그리고 여기에서 든 것 외에 다른 다양한 전관예우 근절책의 제시를 기다리고 싶다. 혹자는 이와 같은 방안의 시행이 판․검사들에게 너무 가혹하다고 비판할지 모른다. 그러나 전관예우가 사법의 낙후성을 나타내는 가장 큰 징표인 점을 감안하여 그런 측면이 있다고 하더라도 과감하게 시행해나갔으면 한다. 여러 방책들의 효율적인 시행 후 전관예우가 더 이상 국민들의 주목을 끌지 못하는 맑은 사회가 되었을 때, 우리는 훌쩍 법의 지배가 실현되는 선진사회로 넘어가 있을 것이다. 법의 지배를 함에 있어서 가장 중심적 역할을 하는 사법이 부끄러운 전관예우의 행태를 벗어나 그 기능을 충실히 수행한다면 이는 바로 명실상부한 법의 지배로 연결되는 것이다.