미국의 원로법관(Senior Judge)제도에 관한 연구

The senior judge system of the United States has played an important role in preventing its judicial system from being overburdened and in providing a high-quality judicial service to the public. The system was originally aimed at Article III judges with life tenure. However, a similar application of the system was extended later to Article IV judges and some Article I judges, who are not life-tenured, by the U.S. Congress. The primary purpose of this 1919 Act regarding the senior judge system is to minimize the side effects caused by federal judges with life tenure and to drive them to retire honorably. In present day, the system has not only accomplished the legislative purposes it had set out with, but has also provided the above-mentioned benefits at the same time. The discussion of proposals for improving the judicial service in South Korea has made little to no progress over the course of time. Meanwhile, our court system has not been able to provide high-quality judicial service to the public due to the exponentially increasing caseload. The introduction of the U.S. senior judge system must be discussed substantially at the level of our legislative and judicial branches in order to arrange proposals to optimize the system and to maximize the merits at the time of its introduction as soon as possible.