주민소송제도의 문제점 및 최근 판례에 관한 검토-일본 주민소송제도와의 비교를 바탕으로-

It has been over 10 years since Residents’ Lawsuit was introduced by a revision of Local Autonomy Act. However, only 33 cases have been filed over all and the winning cases were just 3. Although the frame of Residents’ Lawsuit is aimed at implementing direct democracy by residents and encouraging residents’ active political participation, Residents’ Lawsuit is scarcely used in South Korea. On the other hand Japanese Residents’ Lawsuit, which South Korean counterpart modelled on, is being used actively. The reason is the difference between the details of the two schemes. In short, to file Residents’ Lawsuit Residents’ Request for inspection is an essential prerequisite in both schemes, but the necessary quorum and the request period is different between them. With these differences in detail, there are similar issues concerning the action for mandatory injunction, so-called ‘No.4 action’, in both schemes. Recently South Korean Supreme court did a very inspiring judgment which could be interpreted to expand the object of Residents’ Lawsuit from the financial accounting conduction of local governments to the conduction that wasn’t involved in the financial accounting. These judgements seem to encourage more active use of Residents’ Lawsuit. The purpose of this study is to exhort legislative improvement and to increase the use of Residents’ Lawsuit in South Korea by comparing South Korea’s one to Japan’s counterpart and evaluating some Recent Cases of South Korean Supreme court.