‘수인의 채무자 있는 채권관계’의 이해에 대한 비판적 검토

Korean civil code knows two types of co-debtor: solidarity obligation similiar to joint and several liability in english civil law and indivisible obligation, in addition to which improper solidarity obligation is also acknowledged as a kind of co-debtor by the civil law jurisprudence. This article criticizes the majority of the tradional civil law jurisprudence on the solidarity obligation, which has considered the discharging effect a material alteration(a novatio), release, confusion and so on have in relation to another joint debtors as weakening the suretyship purpose and which has made a sharp critic against these-related rules of korean civil code as a legislation not reflecting the suretyship function of joint debtors. But this article estimates many relevant korean civil code rules as respecting legitimate interests of joint debtors, on the contrary to the traditional theory insisting some rules related to fostering suretyship function overestimate the interest of creditor against general civil law principles. Through the analysis of the traditional theory on the figure “co-debtor”, this article aims to reconstruct the legal relation of plurality of debtors.