A Study on the System of Litigation and Ideal Dispute Resolution

소송제도와 이상적인 분쟁해결제도에 관한 연구 - 대법원의 상고법원 설치안을 중심으로 -

The number of final appeal(the rate of final appeal: 43%) has been on the increase every year over the past ten years in Korea. The number of final appeal cases given to a justice of the Korean Supreme Court amounts to nearly one everyday, which makes it vulnerable to faulty decisions. Reversal rate of final appeal is as low as 10% with most of the cases being dismissed and hence the percentage of people having trust in the judiciary is merely 27%. In this context, the Korean judiciary has announced its plan to set up a final appellate court in the Supreme Court. The establishment of final appellate court, however, is not only against the Constitution but also hardly seen in other nations. It would only overexpand the Supreme Court. Furthermore, the final appellate court would end up deteriorating into the court of fourth instance and impose extra burden on the government as well as on the disputing parties. Therefore, it is necessary to upgrade the quality of the court by increasing the number of judges in the lower court and let them focus on the fact finding process. Facilitating the ADR(Alternative Dispute Resolution) process such as arbitration would help improve the structure of the judiciary. The incompatibility among the four values of the dispute resolution process(equitability, truth, quickness and efficiency) calls for building comprehensive judicial system in which disputes are settled by choosing either jurisprudence or utility.