지방자치단체의 법무역량 강화방안 연구

Study on Enhanced Competence in Judicial Affairs of Local Governments

Local autonomy had not been well implemented in Korea due to historical situations. However, local councils were organized in 1991 to open an era of local autonomy. Democracy means people are the owners of the country and grassroots democracy indicates local residents are the owners of their regions. From this point of view, grassroots democracy has realized greater achievements over the past 20 years whereas the rule of law as a strong support for grassroots democracy in local administration has not been fully mature. Increased awareness of their rights by local residents led to expansion of local autonomy which involves increased participation and legislation by local residents. Such expansion cannot be handled without administrative competence based on the rule of law. Administrative enforcement based on the rule of law is effective in that local residents do not reject it, and it is also consistent with and fair to all local residents. The most important thing to support local administration based on the rule of law is the competence of local officials for judicial affairs with which they can exercise local administration based on correct laws in the front line. This study was intended to evaluate local officials for their competence in judicial affairs, find out related problems and suggest improvements in order to deal with enhanced competence of local governments. Realization of administration based on the rule of law by means of enhanced competence of local governments is not a matter of complicated theoretical organizations. It requires an approach based on legal policy. Grassroots democracy called local autonomy can be secured by administration based on the rule of law and administration based on the rule of law can be secured by the judicial functions with competence.