국민참여 형사재판의 대상사건에 관한 비판적 고찰과 대안

Civic Participation in Criminal Trials Act, the law related to citizen participation in criminal trial, were first conducted in Jan. 1st 2008 in our country. This Act regarded as a drastic change of the korean judiciary system. Our citizens’ participation system is a mixed form of the pure jury system in common law countries of Anglo-American legal system and lay judge system of the continental countries, Germany and Japan etc. The introduction of this system was based on the principle of democracy that calls for people's active engagement in decision-making processes in the legislature, the administration and the judiciary. Specially, this system was designed to promote citizens' participation in trials as part of ongoing legal reforms. Therefore the introduce of this system aimed to reinforce the democratic legitimacy of the judicial process and to enhance the transparency and credibility of the judiciary. But, at that time, the Supreme Court promised they will make this system into the suitable form for Korean situation after 5 years’ test periods. So, the Supreme Court worked out the revised plan Civic Participation in Criminal Trials Act after several deliberations of Citizens' Judical Participation Committee. But this system come face to face the crisis because of low rates of application, high rates of withdrawal and high rates of exclusion. According to the current law, citizens’ participation is limited to the felony case and it is held only if defendants want. It is generally esteemed it is reasonable. But on the other hand, some people criticized about the problem of the subject range of application in Art. 5. So, I will exercise debates about the subject range of citizen participation criminal trials and suggest the revised bill about its subject range that suits our society and circumstances in this paper.