임의후견에서 본인의 자기결정권과 법원의 감독

Guaranteeing Autonomy vs. Controlling the Contractual Guardianship by Court

From the perspective of autonomy the importance of lasting power of attorney (contractual guardianship) as an alternative to judicial guardianship is more and more emphasized. But the characteristic of lasting power of attorney, i.e guaranteeing the autonomy of disabled adults and the abstention of supervision could lead to abuse of authority by guardian. For the courts, there are two ways to protect adult from abuse of authority by contractual guardian: To control the opening of lasting power of attorney ex ante and to supervise the management of affairs by the guardian after the lasting power of attorney comes into effect. Between these two ways the Korean provisions regulating lasting power of attorney focus mainly on the first: as a prerequisite for valid contractual guardianship authentication of deed and lasting power of attorney comes into force only when Family Court examines the case and appoints a supervisory attorney. These requirements are blamed for not complying with the doctrine of guaranteeing autonomy coined by CRPD and for making the system unnecessarily expensive and difficult for access. In fact the statistic shows that the system of lasting power of attorney is much more used in the countries where the requirement for valid power of attorney and judicial intervention/supervision are scarce. However, in consideration of other factors, like that the German Courts are allowed to grant a judicial guardianship, even if a lasting power of attorney comes into effect, and therefore to control the attorney’s management, a comprehensive evaluation is needed for deciding how the risk from lasting power of attorney is dealt by the social and guardianship system. In my opinion an abandonment of ex-ante control could put the protection of adult in serious danger in considering that the ex-post supervision systems are not yet sufficient.