주민소송의 대상 - 대법원 2020. 7. 29. 선고 2017두63467 판결 - = Subjects of residents’ lawsuits

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Supreme Court's judgment 2017DU63467 made on July 29, 2020. The above judgment judged that the relevance between the claim of residents’ audits and the claim of residents’ lawsuits depends on whether it is the same as the social facts, which are the basis of the claim of residents’ audit, and that the acts or facts derived from or subsequently occurred from it are also recognized to be related to the claim of residents’ audits. It was also noted that whether the actions claimed by the plaintiff were financial accounting actions subject to residents’ lawsuits should be based on whether the actions constituted a single illegal financial accounting action as a whole.
It is difficult to derive specific criteria for judgment on the relevance between the claim of residents’ audits and the claim of residents’ lawsuits by interpretation the word of Article 17 (1) of the Local Autonomy Act. In addition, it is practically difficult to clearly distinguish between financial accounting actions and non-financial actions of local governments. Therefore, in deriving the criteria for determining subjects of residents’ lawsuits, judgment on the purpose and function of residents’ lawsuits system must be involved.
Residents' lawsuits have the characteristics of enhancing accountability for the local administration and as a means of democratic participation of residents, and residents' lawsuits correspond to the public interest litigation and the public litigation. However, the utilization of residents’ lawsuits is low. Considering this, there is significance of the said judgment on the fact that it developed the legal principles that fit the function and character of the residents' lawsuit by respecting the legislative purpose of the residents' lawsuits system to ensure the proper operation of local finances, but not interpreting the object of the residents' lawsuits too strict.