일본 민법(채권법) 주요 개정사항 개관 - 민법총칙을 중심으로 -

Abstract

Recently, in Japan, the bill for the full amendment of the Civil Code(law of obligations) passed through the National Assembly and passed into law (June 2, 2017). With the amendment, in 120 years after the legislation of Japanese Civil Code (1896), the full amendment of the law of obligation realized. In this article, I reviewed the contents of the amendment and the purpose of the legislation mainly on the general provisions of the Civil Code. As a result of the review, it has been confirmed that the revision of the general provisions of the Civil Code can be broadly classified into the following three types. First type is the legislation of case law into Civil Code to clarify the meaning of specific provisions. Second type is the revision of current law to eliminate the irrationality of the contents of the discipline(regardless of the case law). Third type is the radical revision of the system and contents of the discipline. A few of the amendments to the general provisions of Japanese Civil Code are already reflected in the Korean Civil Code (such as the protection of third parties in Declaration of Untrue Intention), and some others are similar to the draft bill of the Civil Law Revision Committee of the Justice Ministry in 2013(such as the interruption and suspension of extinctive prescription). In addition, many revisions are the reflection of case laws accumulated in Japanese society, and therefore some contents are not suitable to be directly applied to the Korean Civil Code. Nevertheless, I think that the amendment of the general provisions of Japanese Civil Code has a lot of contents that can be referenced in interpretation and legislation of the Korean civil law in the future. It would be a pleasure if the review of this article contributed as little as a reference for related research.