국민참여재판의 대상사건에 관한 검토

Around 2008, citizen participation in criminal trials was introduced in the justice system with great expectations and concerns. More than a decade has passed, but there is still reluctance to state that the citizen participation in criminal trials is in a firmly established state. Some of the indicators that bespeak of the crisis about citizen participation in criminal trials include ambiguous legal principles about restriction ability, limits in the application rights of the accused, number of cases in stagnation stage, and failure to implement citizen participation in criminal trials about serious cases. These problems can be solved only with enough time and discussion, and it is considered as a gateway for citizen participation in criminal trials to substantialize the intent of the legislation. Amongst many controversies and problems about citizen participation in criminal trials, this study started with a question about the appropriateness of existing regulation regarding eligible cases of citizen participation in criminal trials. There were multiple legislative changes about eligible cases of citizen participation in criminal trials and in fact, citizen participation in criminal trials is available for all criminal cases. While it appears desirable that citizen participation in criminal trials was opened up fully, there are considerable number of problems identified internally into the system. This study will first reveal why it is necessary to take a step further in rationally adjusting eligible cases of citizen participation in criminal trials and investigate from a practical perspective about which cases should be fixed as the eligible cases of citizen participation in criminal trials.