전 세계적인 민사배심재판의 쇠퇴, 민사증거법상 전문증거배제법칙의 변화와 우리에의 시사점

Jury trial system is not universally adopted across the world. It is generally confined to common law countries, while a handful of civil law countries that were influenced by the UK and US have introduced jury trial system in criminal procedure. Civil jury, as opposed to criminal jury, is almost non-existent in civil law countries. As shown by the experiences of many common law countries, jury trial system cannot be separated from a sophisticated evidence law including hearsay rule. Such rules were designed to filter illegitimate evidences before they are presented to jurors who can be improperly influenced by such evidences, unlike professional judges. As civil jury trial greatly diminished, civil evidence rules–represented by hearsay rule - have either been abolished or undergone significant changes in most common law countries. Korea, traditionally classified as a civil law country, adopted criminal jury trial system in 2008 and the Korean Supreme Court is presently considering introducing civil jury trial. Korea is an ‘emerging star’ in the field of jury trial across the world. Introducing jury trial, however, goes beyond just replacing a part of judges’ role with that of juries. It requires introducing many systems that are unique in common law countries such as evidence law, lengthy discovery, plea bargain, and so on. In other words, jury trial system can bring a significant change in the existing legal system of Korea. But Korea still has a relatively disorganized evidence law. For example, Korean civil procedure law does not have any provisions on hearsay rule. Without a significant level of changes in the existing legal system, transplanting US-style civil jury trial will cause a serious confusion. As such, it is indispensible to carefully scrutinize civil jury trial and civil evidence rules across the world before introducing civil jury trial system, in order to find how to address its possible complications.