A Study on the Citizen Participatory Trial in Korea

Abstract

In Korea there have been several democratic claims since 1900’s with the remarkable economic growth, one of which is the fairness of judgement through citizens’ participation in criminal procedures.Korean criminal system introduced a new trial system called “Citizens’ Participation in the Trial System” in 2008. From the historical view points, Korean criminal judicial system began through the foundation of “the Supreme Court’s Judicial Reform Committee” in 2003. One of the results, achieved by the Judicial Reforms, was the enactment of “The act on Citizen Participation in Criminal Trials.” According to this new trial system, common people began to participate in some of criminal trials not as an object, but as the subject of the criminal procedures.But the prospects for this jury trial system in korea are not bright. Because the Result of korean jury trial during 2008-2010 has so many problems.Above all most important problems are as follows1. Low rates of application to the jury trial2. Hgh rates of withdrawl of application by the accused3. High rates of exclusion by judge4. The excessive appeals by the prosecutorAfter the testing period (2008-2012), we had to decide whether we should continue this new system or not. Supposing that the new model is not inconsistent with the Korean culture, is the new Korean jury trial system thought to be suitable for us?Thus at this time, I am going to present some methods to solve current problem in korean jury trial system.