4․19 혁명과 법률가집단의 정치 －대법원장․대법관선거제 도입과 변호사회의 동향을 중심으로－

Abstract

The Article 78 (1) of the third amendment Constitution promulgated on June 15, 1960 stipulated that “the Supreme Court Chief Justice and Justice shall be elected by the electoral group organized by persons with justiceship and be confirmed by the President.” According to the Law on the judicial election for the Supreme Court Chief Justice and Justices enacted in April 1961, the candidate registration for the judicial election was completed on May 7 and the primary and main elections were scheduled to take place on May 17 and 25, respectively, though the military coup on May 16 turned everything to nothing. The judicial election system was an symbolic and important judicial reform planed in the constitutional revision after the April Revolution. The literatures on the constitutional and judicial history, however, have been scarcely addressed this unprecedented system. This article examines the political and legal sociological implications of the introduction of the judicial election system by analyzing the background and context of adopting this unique system and the roles and movements of the lawyers’ organizations and the bar associations in Seoul. The political tasks raised by the April Revolution necessarily gave the legal profession an opportunity and space to expand their political and social influence based on constitutional doctrines such as independence of jurisdiction and rule of law. The judges and lawyers had the opportunity to appropriate and utilize the meaning and fruit of the Revolution. When the experience of the First Republic of Korea was deemed to prove that the “appointment system” and the “Monroeism of the judiciary” were the cause of the political dependency and bureaucratism in the judiciary, the proposal of constituting the Supreme Court upon the consensus of the judicial world was accepted as an attractive way to satisfy both the judicial independence and judicial democratization. In this way, the election system was able to enter the constitution through the bar association's initiative and lobbying, but there was also a battle between the judiciary and the bar over the question of how to design the system. When discussing the implications and context of the constitutional adoption of the judicial election, the activities of a group of lawyers and the bar associations provide very interesting and meaningful subjects. The formation of the Liberal Attorneys Group in preparation for the July 29 general election, and the Division of the Seoul Bar Association, which took place at the time when the legislative process for the judicial election system began in earnest, are noted. It can be said that the division of the Seoul Bar Association by a group of lawyers who established the Seoul First Bar Association was an attempt to secure a more favorable position in the competition for legitimacy and power within the legal circle in the context of the expansion of the political role and access to power of the legal profession after April Revolution. This article tried to show this point by comparing and analyzing the legal qualifications and careers of major figures and members of the bar associations.