변호사시험법 제정안 비판

Abstract

The aim of this study is to criticize the Bar Exam Bill(referred to as “the bill” below) proposed by the Ministry of Justice of Korea in the perspective of Judicial democratization and human rights protection. The examination into the bill has shown that it has a lot of defects, both in its form and content, as follows: First, the Special Committee which drafted the bill represents only the legal profession and a few major law schools, and thereby makes the bill strengthen their existing privileges. Second, the bill is not integrated in the existing Bar Act, making it possible to require as a qualification of a lawyer a course of practice training after passing the bar exam. Third, it infringes on the freedom of occupation by restricting the eligibility for the bar exam application only to law school graduates while excluding any preliminary exam mechanism for those who do not graduate a law school. Fourth, the bill shifts the responsibility for an ill-planned system on to law school students by confining the application chances only to three times within five years after law school graduation. Fifth, it deteriorates the normal process of law school education by setting up too many subjects for the bar exam. Sixth, the bill maintains the basic quota system of the existing National Judicial Examination by abandoning the method of absolute evaluation. Seventh, it allows the existing National Judicial Examination to be prolonged until the year of 2017, which would hinder the law school system from becoming stabilized within a short period. Finally, the bill makes the Bar Exam Committee prevailed by the legal profession, and thereby fortifying the privileges of those in the circle. In conclusion, the proposed bar exam, in connection with the limitation of the total admission quota of law schools, would lead to denial of the original purport of introducing a law school system, that is, “cultivation of lawyers through education.” Furthermore, it would repeat the same failure as its predecessor, the National Judicial Examination which has proven to establish the privileged legal circle and thereby to obstruct the judicial democratization, while making a large part of young population in the status of “examination vagrants.” To correct these problems, the bar exam should be redesigned as a form of pure qualifying examination by adopting an absolute evaluation system as well as a preliminary examination arrangement opening the application eligibility to the public in general.