주요 국가의 상고 제한제도 – 미국, 프랑스, 독일, 일본 제도를 중심으로 -

In 2014, the Supreme Court of Korea received 37,652 final appeal cases, which should be examined and decided by only 13 Justices. As of now, it is commonly recognized that burden of the Supreme Court due to the heavy caseload should be relieved, but it seems that there is no consensus how to resolve the problem or that there is lack of discussions on it. As the problem would be discussed continuously from now on, this paper intends to deal with the overview and the historical transition of final appeal systems of the United States, France, Germany, and Japan, which might be helpful to the discussion to improve the final appeal system of Korea hereafter. This study suggests that every nation adopted a system to control the caseload of the final appeal by selecting the cases worthy of concentrative examination of the highest court. It can be summarized that every nation made an strategic determination to prioritize public interests of the formation and development of law by unifying the construction and application of its law. For examples, a writ of certiorari in the United States, non-admission of a final appeal in France, permission of a final appeal in Germany and acceptance of a final appeal in Japan are the results of such strategic determinations. Through those selection processes, the highest court of each nation is expected to perform the role and function properly and utilize limited judicial resources effectively.