한국의료분쟁조정중재원의 법적 성격과 운영에 대한 고찰

Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency is a public interest corporation established under ‘The Act on Remedies for Injuries from Medical Malpractice and Mediation of Medical Disputes’ to resolve medical disputes quickly, fairly and efficiently, and its legal nature is a foundation. It also functions as a quasi-judicial agency by recognizing the effect of court reconciliation on the mediation decision as a corporation for the public interest. The arbitration agency has a medical accident assessment team and a mediation committee inside to resolve disputes over medical accidents through mediation and arbitration, not litigation. The Medical Accident Appraisal Group shall be in charge of the appraisal of the damage caused by the victim's medical accident, and the Mediation Committee shall determine the amount of damages based on this. The appraisals and the mediators shall perform their duties independently and their status shall be guaranteed. If mediation or arbitration is established, it will have the same effect as reconciliation on trial, and if the victim refuses to punish, the criminal punishment of the medical doctor who caused the medical accident will be exempted. In order to guarantee the payment of compensation for damages, a deduction association is organized to allow medical personnel to insure them and operate as a liability insurance system. Meanwhile, subrogation payment system was established to require all medical personnel to pay some of their medical expenses from the money raised by the joint fund if they were unable to pay damages due to bankruptcy, etc., and thus operate as a joint responsibility system for medical personnel. In particular, considering that damages caused by force majeure (e.g., cerebral palsy) that can occur in the case of childbirth cannot be determined, the government and medical personnel are required to compensate victims with funds jointly raised by the government and medical personnel despite the negligence of medical personnel. With the introduction of this system, the problem of certification responsibility, which has become a problem in the litigation process for medical accidents, has been resolved to some extent, and prompt compensation for damages can be achieved by guaranteeing the arbitration agency's right to investigate medical institutions. However, the fact that the principle of conciliation-prepositive has not been introduced and that the application for mediation can be withdrawn at any time and moved to the litigation process are obstacles to securing the effectiveness of the system. Therefore, in order for the system to be more settled, it would be desirable to introduce such a system through the revision of relevant laws.