가사소송법 개정안에 대한 고찰 - 이행의 확보 및 관할에 있어서 미성년 자녀의 복리 보호를 중심으로 -

The Amendment Bill of the Family Litigation Act (hereinafter, ‘the Amendment Bill’ or ‘the Bill’) was pre-announced on March 22, 2017, before its legislation (Justice Ministry Notice No. 2017-73). Based on the basic concepts of “Respect for Human Dignity and Gender Equality and Protection of the Interests of Minor Children” (Article 1 of the Amendment Bill), the Bill comprehensively revised and improved the system for protecting the interests of minor children. What should be specially noted is that the Bill aims to reform the system to safeguard the interests of minor children by ensuring performance. Moreover, even in terms of jurisdiction, it includes specific provisions designed to prevent vacuums in taking care of minor children. In the context of ensuring performance, the Bill makes advance decisions executable to raise the effectiveness thereof and prevents immediate appeals from having the effect of suspending the execution (Article 138 of the Amendment Bill). It has also a new separate provision regarding the execution of requests for the delivery of minor children (Article 143 of the Amendment Bill). The detention requirement for those who fail to pay childcare costs (, etc.) was also lessened to make it possible to detain them in case they do not fulfill duties within 30 days, rather than three or more times, without valid reasons (Article 149 of the Amendment Bill). The main purpose thereof is to improve the effectiveness of the punishment. The Bill also aims to avoid vacuums in rearing minor children attributed to a foster parents' attendance at trial by adding a family court with general jurisdiction for minor children to the list of competent courts for cases closely related to the interests of minor children (Articles 37, 140, and so forth of the Amendment Bill). In particular, it has stricter rules for ensuring the payment of childcare costs directly connected with the livelihood and interests of minor children, which are deemed to be of great help to the children and single-parent families suffering from non-compliance with duties to pay child rearing expenses. We look forward to seeing the Amendment Bill be passed as quickly as possible.