민주법학과 노동법학 방법론

Abstract

The Democratic Legal Studies Association was established on January 5, 1989. And then the Association held a conference commemorating its 20th anniversary at the Ajou University on October 17, 2009. What the conference intended to pursue was to retrospect the activities of the Association for the last two decades. I was nominated as a reporter with respect to the part of the articles(about 100 articles) in the area of labor law published in the Journal of Democratic Legal Studies, and I presented my research at the meeting. This is an article that I amended and complemented paper of the presentation. In this article, I tried to analyze many articles related to the labor law reported at the Journal during the last 20 years or so, in light of actuality and science of the articles, and with respect to the degree of support from the people, the National Assembly, and the courts. Because these points of analyzing the articles were what the Association proclaimed, that is, especially a participation in a real society, pursuing a scientific method in performing researches, and establishing a democratic society through a democratic jurisprudence, in the statement of its establishment declaration in 1989. Conclusions are as follows:First, those articles had highly performed its roles of actuality. Most of all dealt with real problems occurring in the society in all the times. Second, those articles had faithfully pursued a scientific method in researching the problems. Especially, all researchers participated in the field on the side of labor. Futhermore, they researched the labor law issues with knowledges gained in workplace. Third, even though they succeeded in the goals of actuality and science in the establishment declaration, I could not be able to conclude that the members of the Association had reached the last goal, that is, establishing a democratic society through a democratic jurisprudence. Of course I hope that my conclusion on the last goal is only true in my own opinion. In general, however, it can not be denied that there are many estrangements between the members’ legal theories derived from those articles and the statutes or the holdings by the courts. It may be very difficult for the members to perform the last goal simultaneously with another goals of the Association from the beginning. It may not be an easy task to realize the last goal for a long time. But here I suggest that we can not help endeavoring to reach the last goal continually.