기소절차상 국민참여방안으로 검찰시민위원회 제도에 대한 검토

Abstract

Efforts have been made to present specific reform measures that enable reasonable and efficient operation of the current Civil Committee on Prosecution as the Korean form of a grand jury. As a result, the following conclusions were reached. First, the current Civil Committee on Prosecution was established not on the basis of an independent law but by the prosecution’s internal guidelines, and its operation has an inborn limitation to become nominal. Toward this end, the operation guideline, which was meant to be an established rule, should be enacted in order to ensure the effectiveness of the Committee. Second, the functions of the Committee should be rationalized. The current Committee only reviews cases that are requested by prosecutors and, therefore, it has met with a great deal of criticism. In order to increase the effectiveness of this institution, the Committee should review cases that accusers have applied for or cases that the Committee has determined under its own authority to be relevant, in addition to cases that have been requested by prosecutors. Third, although a measure to affiliate the Committee with a grand jury system like the one used in the U.S. has been put forth, and the Prosecution Review Commission may review such a measure, it is desirable to attach the Committee to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in consideration of the need for swift and efficient investigations. However, to ensure the independence of the Committee, budget-related matters should be controlled by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and other matters should be independently determined by the Committee. Fourth, the legal binding force of decisions by the Committee should not be recognized and it will be sufficient to recognize its de facto binding force. Today, many criminal cases require a high level of legal knowledge for their resolution and there are many instances in which the cases cannot or should not be solved using the common sense or feelings of ordinary citizens who are not in the legal profession. Accordingly, it is enough to recognize only the de facto binding force where the Committee’s decisions are respected by the prosecutors.