개정 형사소송법상 국민중심주의적 재판에 관하여

The term "trial-priority principle", which the Court recently has put up as a slogan for the reform of the criminal procedure, was the hot issue on which there has been a sharp conflict between the Court and the Ministry of Justice. Generally, as the contents of the "trial-priority principle", public trial, orality, fact-finding by fact-finder's own examination, concentration of trial, hearsay rule are mentioned. But the Court distorted the principle by insisting that the principle require to admit as evidence only the statements made in front of the judge and not to admit the statements in front of the investigative agent. This kind of opinion is a very serious misunderstanding and far away from the general theory of evidence. On the other hand, in the course of the discussion for the revision of criminal procedure, the Ministry of Justice insisted that the reason for the "trial-priority principle" be the control of the people and strenthening the transparency of the trial. National Assembly, in the course of the deliberation of the bill for the revising the law of criminal procedure, rejected the opinion of the Court for the admissibility of the out of court statements and adopted the point of view of the the Ministry of Justice for the transparency of the trial. As a result, the orality, concentration of trial, continuing trial are stipulated in the statute. But the theoretical distortion made by the Court using the notion of for the the "trial-priority principle" is so serious and widespread that the term is not appropriate to represent the reason for the newly introduced principle of orality, concentration of trial, continuing trial. Therfore it is necessary to use a new term to represent the direction and reason of the new procedure appropriately and to correct the distortion. For this purpose, I recommand the term "trial focusing on the people" because the trial should be proceeded from the standpoint of the people and understandable for the people.