2010년도 종교법판례의 동향

Abstract

It seems to be meaningful to look into the tendency of precedents on religious law cases every year as a method of overall looking back and shedding new light on religious circles for the previous year. However, the most ideal status for the precedents on religious law cases seems to be that there is no religious law case at all. The precedents on religious law cases result from the endeavors of settling down religious disputes. Therefore, when there is no dispute in the religious circles, no precedents on religious law cases can result in. But it is nonsense to dream a world of religious peace where no religious disputes occur, big or small. Human beings are religious beings and not separable from religions. In this regard, the existence of human beings inevitably results in religious disputes. In this article, the tendency of precedents on religious law cases for a period of one year from January to December, 2010 was examined. The criterion of discerning whether it is the precedent on religious law cases is not clear. But in this article, the precedent on religious law cases simply refers to national organizations’ judicial judgment on religious disputes over religious issues. The tendency of precedents on religious law cases for the year of 2010 can be summarized as follows: First, judicial organizations respected the spirits and ideologies of constitutional law and the principles of religious freedom and the separation of religion and politics and then tried to interpret legal cases according to the above ideologies and principles and apply them to their ruling. Second, regarding the conflicts between national values, personal values and between the duties of defense and the freedom of religion, the precedents on religious law cases for the year of 2010 showed a more individualistic and liberalistic tendency than ever. Third, although Korea is a religiously pluralistic society, religious disputes occurred in the previous year were not the disputes between religions but the legal actions on the internal troubles within religious organizations in general. The modality of religious law cases in the future will be quite different from conventional ones. The tension between the government and the religious circles has become severe even to the degree which is presented by the press as ‘religious war’. And as presented in the relationship between Protestantism and Buddhism, the conflicts between religions have already risen to alarming levels. In the result, the number of precedents on religious law cases will continuously increase in the future and its contents will be more complicated than ever.