이른바 전자소송법에 대한 비판적 검토

A Review of the Electronic Procedure Act – Focus on the Meaning of the term “Documents” and “Documentary Evidence” –

Korean judicature has been wildly publicizing the opening of the electronic litigation era as the “Act on the Use of Electronic Documents in Civil Procedures”(Electronic Procedure Act) takes effects on March 2010. This law means using electronic documents as well as paper documents in the court. Generally it is called the electronic filing system(electronic case management). Beyond this kind of territory, however, the article 13 of the act controls the area of documentary evidence, which causes considerable problems in current civil procedural system. The Civil Procedure Act make distinction between documents, paper files and written forms. But the newly made Electronic Procedure Act overgeneralize the meaning of documents, which means it defines every kinds of documents, for example, such as a special kind of document that works as an evidence. Furthermore, the act seems to include sound and image data into the documentary evidence erea. Beacuse that does not inflect the characteristic of document evidences at all, the best solution at the moment is to construe the article1 13 restrictly: the article1 is the provision about a form of the examination of evidence, That is supplementary regulation of the article 374 of the Civil Procedure Act, and the article 120 & 121 of Civil Procedure rules. And the concept of the “electronic document” on the article 2 of the Electronic Procedure Act should be confined to relation to the electronic filing system only.