北韓法의 歷史的 形成과 變化

Abstract

North Korean law, as a part of Korean law, is approaching to the 60th Anniversary of its foundation. The process of it's historical formation is not much known to the common people as well as the academic researchers. This writer as a legal historian has paid attention to the legal history of North Korea since last 10 years. It is really hard to grasp the process from the point of the writer himself. Fortunately, a number of the North Korean materials offer some clues to access the process. First of all, a book called Legislation History of Democratic People's Republic of Korea(Pyongyang, 1986) written by Hong Keukpyo gives a good guide to the whole history of North Korean legislation. Hong classifies the history into seven stages: 1) Glorious Anti-Japanese Revolutionary Struggle(1932-46) 2) Anti-Imperialistic, anti-feudalistic Revolution for Democracy(1946-48) 3) First Stage toward Socialism(1948-50) 4) Legislations for Glorious War of Nation's Liberation(1950-53) 5) Post-War Restoration of Economy and Socialistic Foundation(1950's) 6) Total Reconstruction for Socialism(1960's) 7) Struggle for Perfect Victory of Socialism(1970's) This periodization is, of course, strongly colored by the socialistic ideology of North Korea. It shows that law in North Korea has faithfully served the state power. It shows even the fact that North Korea prepared the Korean War of 1950 carefully by the legislation in the name of the Nation's Liberation. By the way, these seven stages of the North Korea's legal history ended with 1980's. Since then that over 25 years have passed. The eighth stage or the more is to be explained. This recent legal history reveals some quite different aspects. This article surveys the recent legislation of North Korea in detail as much as possible. This article deals the following legal fields: 1) Revision of Constitutional Law in 1992 and 1998 2) Civil Law (1990) and Family Law(1990) 3) Socialistic Commercial Law(1992), City Administration Law(1992) 4) Joint-Venture Business Law(1984) 5) Revision of Civil Procedure Law(1994) 6) Foreign Trade Law(1995) 7) Revision of Judicial Organization Law(1998) Conclusively, this article points out some symptoms of change in North Korean law. It becomes more dynamic and refined than the previous legislations. It seems inevitable for North Korea to demonstrate it's new image to South Korea and the global countries. It might be called a demonstrative legislation at least. The problem is how much such legislations match the social reality in North Korea. The topic of law and reality is another task of research. This article must be satisfied as the first description of formal legal history written by a South Korean legal scholar. To be sure, it might be a small contribution toward the reunification of South and North Korean laws in the future.