북한 가족법제의 동향과 남북 가족법제 통합의 방향

Abstract

There are varying opinions on the possibility of North and South Korea’s unification, but it can be considered in two ways. First is through negotiation. In this case, an establishment of a new legal system, which will be enforced in the Unified Korea, can be expected through both countries’ agreement on the unification of law system. Therefore, a preparation of unified civil law will be strategically established to extract core values of South Korean society, thus to carry them through the negotiation. Second is a unification that will be achieved by the demolition of the truce line, resulting from North Korea’s current urgent situations. In this case, in which the two countries are first physically unified, a stable guarantee of living for the citizens will become the top priority for both countries. Therefore, in the preparation for the unified civil law, it is necessary to discuss how South Korea’s civil law could accept North Korea’s disparate family law system. Along with measures to sustain North Korean’s stable family living system, a more detailed direction for the unified civil law in the future is required. This paper studies the recent trend of North Korea’s family law system and suggests various solutions for the unification of the systems of both countries, in the perspective of the second hypothesis. The “North Korea Family Law”, which was established and has been enforced from December 1, 1990 with 54 provisions, contains practically 46 family-related provisions, since 8 provisions among them are related to inheritance. Compared to “South Korea Family Law” with 204 provisions, “North Korea Family Law” is considered to hold quite theoretical provisions. By still having the inheritance-related provisions in “North Korea Family Law”, even after the establishment of “North Korea’s Inheritance Law” in 2002, it seems to maintain an unstructured legal system. Therefore, in this paper, studies were conducted limited to “South Korea Family Law” and “North Korea Family Law”. Part II studies on the trend of recent amendment of North Korea family law system. North Korea has put effort to establish a legitimate legal system by amending unfair provisions. Part III sets “South Korea Family Law” as a standard and compare corresponding provisions of “North Korea Family Law” to study the characteristics of both law system. Based on this, possible issues that could arise in the process of combining the two law system are extracted, to suggest a direction of unified family law and measures to mediate interests of the two parties, in case “South Korea Family Law” is to be applied in the unification process. Nonetheless, regarding the ‘inheritance’ in “North Korea Family Law”, the discussion was held in accordance to its relationships with “North Korea Inheritance Law”. Part IV is the conclusion. “North Korea Family Law” generally highlights North Korea’s uniqueness and tradition as well as emphasizes the family relations for socialistic rule of state, thus characterizes itself as a public law under the state control. Nonetheless, despite its uniqueness and tradition, if it fails to cover the conventional values, it is no more than a linguistic vanity. The basic premises for unification of family law should include guarantee of dignity, freedom, gender equality and principle of private autonomy, based on liberal democratic order. Therefore, provisions in “North Korea Family Law” and “North Korea Inheritance Law” that fail to hold the conventional values should not be embraced in “South Korea Family Law”. Under these premises, to apply “South Korea Family Law” in the process of unifying both countries family law, it is vital to support the North Korean citizens, who have been living under North Korea Family Law and Inheritance Law, to guarantee their continuity of living. Moreover, if necessary in order to create new values for unified South and North Korea, it is also suggested to accept North Korea Family Law. A proposal to accept stepson as a blood related, which is not the case in South Korea, as well as a proposal to acknowledge and unify both adopted and blood sons as “blood-foster son relationship” should be considered in the establishing unified family law. In addition, the paper emphasizes the necessity of discussion on the double marriage, which can arise as a serious issue even before the actual unification. The two countries hold varying opinions in double marriages, with South Korea asserting that it can be annulled, whereas North Korea not acknowledging its legitimacy. Considering the long term separation and rare opportunities to hear from each other, the paper suggests protection measures on current double marriages. On the other hand, considering North Korean citizens’ lack of understanding of constitutional legislations, easy-to-understand legal terms and simple procedures in applying North and South related provisions are needed. Unification cannot be realized just with an idea. It takes a significant amount of cost. With South Korea’s economic scale, too much risk is at stake in paying this cost at once. The alternative is then to pursue a progressive unification. A desirable factor for this progressive unification will be allowing North Koreans a certain period of time to get accustomed to capitalistic society, and this is why civil exchanges between South Korea and North Korea should become more active. At the same time, South Korea’s system and mindset should also lean more toward to those of unification-friendly. Through the study of “North Korea Law System”, there will be a better understanding of North Korean society and people’s mind set, which in turn, will reduce the cost of unification and social conflicts afterward.