한국의 배심원재판 －준비과정과 시행원년의 성과를 검토한다－

Abstract

In South Korea, the issue on lay participation in the criminal trials emerged on the surface of policy-making process only in the 21th century. In 2004, the Judicial Reform Committee under the Supreme Court proposed a package of judicial reform agenda, in which the introduction of lay participation in the criminal trials was included. After more elaborate works by the Promoting Committee for the Judicial Reform, a draft on the Civil Participation on Criminal Trials was submitted to the National Assembly, and the National Assembly passed the Act on the Lay Participation on Criminal Trials on April 2007. Korean form of lay participation would be modelled after jury system (like U.S.A, and England) rather than mixed court system (like Germany). The jury trials in Korea are supposed to start from January 2008. There was no room for more elaborate preparations. A set of “trial and error” was inescapable. In this paper, I focus on two points. First, I summarize what major issues were discussed for the introduction of Korean Jury Trials under the historical contexts. Second, I analyze the first year experiment of jury trials among a judicial system of “no lay participation.” Only 60 cases were tried by the jury trials in the first year(2008). However, so far, the first year experiments showed some positive sign for more active implementation. Citizens shows a willingness to become juries, and professional judges make a great effort to do good at the new trial system. Initial concerns about the working of lay participation have been decreased. Another reason for jury criminal trials is that new lay participation trials could function as a catalyst for overall reform of criminal justice system. By this analysis, I make some proposals for jury trials in the wider cases.