현행 제조물책임법의 개정방향에 관한 연구

Abstract

Consumer organizations and academia critics have constantly questioned the practicality of the Product Liability Act for consumer protection claims, enforced since July 1st, 2002. In 2011, Government agencies, the Ministry of Justice and the Fair Trade commission, started the law revision. The Product Liability Act has long been enforced in Europe and Japan also the critics has raised in those countries in the same perspective so that their governments started revising on the Product Liability Act currently. This paper will propose the revision over a couple of major issues on the Product Liability Act which has been emerged recently. First, the definition of the term “product”, defined as “industrially manufactured or processed movable property”, should be extended not only to immovable property but also to raw agricultural, marine, and livestock products. Second, a consumer, a victim, is responsible for the presence of the product defect and for the causality of the defect and the damage. Therefore, the presumption of Law should be enacted to alleviate the burden of proof on consumers. Finally, the law, stated “that the state of scientific or technical knowledge at the time when the manufacturer supplies the product was not such as to enable the existence of the defect to be discovered”, in the cause of exemption from responsibility should be deleted and punitive damage awards on manufacturers has to be introduced. Such proposal for revision is hoping to make consumer rights realizable through government discussion and expecting the related law will be revised by the National Assembly in rational manner.