국선변호제도의 문제점과 개선방안

Abstract

Although the public defender system, which guarantees the right to receive assistance of a public defender provided in the Constitution, has developed and improved a lot, the empty space is still large and there are many things to be reformed. The rate of attorneys' involvement in the investigation of the suspect in the investigation process is only 0.1-0.2%. The rate of criminal trial alone without even public defender in the defendant case reaches as much as 41%. Although Korea has joined the OECD in 1996 and has been in advanced countries for more than 20 years, it is neglecting to improve the treatment of a public defender on the grounds of 'budget shortage'. Recently, there has been a critical public opinion that the court's main role in selecting and supervising public defenders is not valid because it violates the independence of the public defender’s argument. Therefore, it is urgent and important to expand completely the public defender system for suspects. It is a significant contradiction of the rule of law and a disgrace of the civilized state that most of the suspects receive ‘alone investigation’ without the assistance of the public lawyer at the investigation stage where the counsel's assistance is most needed, human rights abuse are frequent and most serious. The public lawyer system, which is led and operated by the court, has been exposed to the serious problem that the public lawyer is subordinate to the court in charge and the independence of the argument is violated. In the future, it will be necessary to actively consider transferring the right to select and supervise the counsel, not to courts, but to an independent corporations such as a lawyer group or a judicial support center in Japan. Remuneration for public defenders has been stagnant for 10 years and is less than half of that of Japanese lawyers. At least it is necessary to raise to the level of Japan’s public defense remuneration. Other improvement measures include flexible interpretation of reasons for the selection of the public defense, such as the reasons for poverty, the relaxation of the criteria for legal punishment for more than three years, the stipulation of the payment timing of the public defense remuneration, the stable provision of the public defense budget, and enforcement of educational training and external evaluation to improve expertise of the national attorneys for criminal cases, electronic filing of criminal cases, and the training of lawyers who are dedicated to jury trial.