한국 국민의 사법신뢰 인식 변화: 국민법의식 조사 결과 분석을 중심으로

Democracy develops in a dialectical relationship with the rule of law, but the trust of the Korean people in the functioning of the rule of law is not very high. The purpose of this study is to examine how public trust in the judiciary has changed in South Korea since democratization and to analyze the main variables that affect trust in the judiciary. For this purpose, this study analyzed responses related to ‘perception of the level of law-abidingness in our society’ and ‘perception of the fairness of trials’ from the ‘The Consciousness Survey on Laws’ conducted by the Korea Legislation Research Institute seven times from 1991 to 2023, in three dimensions. First, this study analyzed the changes and characteristics of ‘perception of the level of law-abidingness’ and ‘perception of the fairness of trials’ as revealed in the seven The Consciousness Survey on Laws. Second, using the survey data, this study statistically analyzed the main variables and relationships affecting ‘perception of the level of law-abidingness’ and ‘perception of the fairness of trials.’ Third, this study statistically analyzed the differences in the main variables affecting ‘perception of the fairness of trials’ across generations. The analysis results indicated that the perception of public trust in the judiciary has gradually improved since democratization. The variables that continuously and relatively affect public trust in the judiciary are ‘subjective class level’ and ‘size of residential area,’ while variables such as ‘income level’ and ‘ideological orientation’ have recently started to have significant effects.