재난에 대한 법적 대응방안에 관한 고찰

Abstract

In the modern society, we are surrounded by many accidents and products that causes mass disasters. People are suffering from sudden mass death, disability and a large amount of property losses. Disasters are routine in the sense that they are occur nearly every time and every space. Disasters, we creates, are growing in severity and frequency. Dangers are intensified by increases in world population, concentration of people in urban areas, manipulation of the environment, creation of new products through chemical and biological engineering and closer links between various parts of the world through trades and exchanges of technology. Disasters are of particular concern to lawyers because they are dedicated to the general proposition that people should be compensated when they are harmed by others. Our goal has been to provide prompt and full payment to those who are harmed by those who caused the harm while minimizing the overall costs to the system. We fall far short of this goal in connection with many disasters. Compensation is often delayed and expensive. The question is that we can handle claims arising out of mass tort disasters with a more effectively in the present Korean judicial system. The answer is negative. If it is difficult to handel mass disasters with the present Korean judicial system, how and what direction have we take to improve the Korean mass tort system? As a tentative way, I could recommend these ways as follows; First, it needs managing disaster with only one judge. He or she will be more strongly responsible for disaster management with regard to en banc (collegiate court). Second, it needs concentration of decision-making in a single forum. Mass disaster cases need to be transferred (removed) to one court. After that, the other courts have only to follow the decision of the transferred single court. Third, it is needed to make an efficient supporting human resources to trier. Korean magistrates (Sabub-Bo-Joa-Kwan), special expert (Jeon-Mun-Sim-Ri-Yo-Won), associate veteran judge (Jae-panyeon- gu-kwan) could be supporting human resources in this system. Forth, it is needed to make the best use of Korean pretrial procedure (Byun-Ron-Jun-Bi-Jeol-Cha), which will be the core procedure of Korean Civil Procedure in mass disaster cases. The new Korean pretrial procedure also could be helpful to mass cases. Fifth, it is needed to make a cap on mass tort award and allocation in mass disasters. This could be a safeguard for the wrongdoer of mass torts in the settlement process. Seventh, it is needed to make a single distribution plan in mass tort cases. Distribution plan could has its own procedural characteristics according to each judicial system. The plan need to be flexible enough to the existing conditions and adaptive to the victim's sentiments also. Eighth, it is needed to create a national disaster prevention- and management system in mass disasters. This National Disaster Court is useful for torts system or for the use of administrative remedies and of international tribunals. These are one of the most efficient way of controlling mass disaster. The national system of health and disability insurance for all is also desirable. Disasters inevitably will happen again and again in the modern world. We only have to prepare to cope with a disaster in the best way possible.