성년후견제도 운영에서의 지방자치단체와 후견법인의 역할의 정립:일본 지타(知多) 지역 모델의 시사점

Abstract

The Korean Civil Code, revised by law no. 10429, makes local authorities eligible for the application to family courts for the appointment of adult guardians. The legislative purpose is that local authorities shall engage in the protection of vulnerable adults, for which family members have been responsible, but which has failed, due to the protection function of families being weakened. Despite such a purpose, local authorities have still been reluctant to be involved in the application for the appointment of adult guardians, the main reason of which is the lack of legal provisions relevant to local authorities’ function and tasks. That being said, the Protection of the Rights, and the Assistance, of Persons with Developmental Disabilities Act(hereinafter the Persons with Developmental Disabilities Act’), enacted in 2014, provides for the responsibility of local authorities to assist persons with developmental disabilities to resort to guardianship services. This paper deals with the issue of how local authorities efficiently exercise their power to discharge the said responsibilities. For this purpose, this paper conducted a research on how a guardianship corporation working in Jita area in Japan works to provide guardianship services to persons with disabilities and with dementia. After comparison of provisions on adult guardianship corporations of the Persons with Developmental Disabilities Act with the guardianship corporation in Jita, this paper argues that guardianship corporations would be more suitable to provide for public guardianship services to persons with developmental disabilities, and that for local authorities to function more efficiently for the provision of public guardianship services to vulnerable adults it is necessary to enact legal provisons relevant to guardianship corporations in social welfare acts. Then this paper proposes for the revision of the Persons with Developmental Disabilities Act to place guardianship corporations at the center of the provision of public guardianship services.