국민참여재판과 항소

Civil Participatory Trial System and Appeal

Examination of the current status of the Civil Participatory Trial reveals higher appeal rate than regular trials. In particular, the appeal rate by prosecutors is considerably high while the annulment rate at appellate reviews is low. The grounds for appeal set forth in the Criminal Procedure Code, Article 361-5 has remained untouched since the Code's 2nd revision in 1963, and they need to be re-interpreted to take account of the cases tried through Civil Participatory Trials. Also, in the current context where the prosecutor's appeal against not-guilty judgements is taken for granted, the Civil Participatory Trials may function as the starting point for prohibiting appeals against not-guilty judgements Regular trials and Civil Participatory Trials are different from each other in terms of the ideas behind each system and the principle of trial-oriented evidence law. In addition, the appellate reviews of the two systems need to be managed in different ways, as the latter employs a unique procedure in which the defendant and prosecutor determine the fact-finders of his/her own case. The interest in and importance of appellate reviews have recently increased with the adoption of participatory trial system and changes in public trial in the courts of 1st instance. Active and constant discussions are required in order to ensure the appellate trial system to play its essential role of defendant protection while preserving the original intent behind the adoption of the Civil Participatory Trial system.