소액사건심판제도의 개선방안: 재판외 분쟁해결제도 활성화안와 법무사 소송대리권 부여안의 비판적 검토

In 2006, small claims courts of Korea dealt with about 75% (970,000 cases) of the total civil litigations. Some scholars argue that a significant share of these cases is so trivial that alternative dispute resolutions (ADR) should be used. However, others propose an opposite view: "the small claims court" is a misnomer, as a large number of small claim cases are quite complicated. Although litigants need professional counseling services, high fees relative to the amount of claims force litigants to forsake hiring lawyers. Therefore, the government should allow judicial agents to counsel litigants at the small claims court. Data belie these two views. First, it is true that a large number of small claim cases are not simple but complicated. However, it is because the Supreme Court arbitrarily raised the limit of small claim cases and included a large number of complicated cases that require due process. At the same time, since corporations utilize the small claims courts for debt collection, they exhaust resources that should have been used for genuine small claims. Lastly, the Supreme Court does not assign enough judges to the small claims courts that are required to achieve the original goal of institution. For resolving these problems, the Supreme Court should lower the limits of small claims, separate out corporation-litigant cases, and most importantly, assign sufficient number of judges for the small claims court.