Ministry of Justice “Positively Considering Introducing Law School System”

The Ministry of Justice, which has been negative in introducing the law school system (graduate school specialized in law), is attracting public attention by saying that it will “review the introduction of the system.”

The ministry said, “We decided to positively review introducing a law school system in order to educate legal professionals who are competent in today’s global era as well as to distribute human resources appropriately,” while announcing the “Plan to Reform the Ministry of Justice and the Prosecution” on Wednesday.

Since such an attitude change of the Ministry of Justice, which currently administers judicial examinations to aspiring legal professionals, has significant influence on the decision of whether to introduce the law school system or not, there has been raised the possibility of the law school system to be chosen by the majority of the Judicial Reform Committee in the Supreme Court of Korea.

Kim Hoi-sun, chief of the Planning and Management Office, said, “We concluded that improving judicial exams cannot solve problems such as devastated education systems for law students and ‘goshi nang-in (people who stay out of the job market to prepare for judicial exams)’ fundamentally, and that it is more desirable if colleges, rather than the government, take the main responsibility to educate legal professionals.”

He added, “However, we have to create a system that fits our environment after reviewing side effects that could be predictably caused by introducing the law school system.”

The ministry has been suggesting “National Law Educational Institutes,” that qualifies only students who graduated with law degrees, as a new education system for legal professionals while opposing the law school system.

Among the three wheels in the judiciary system, the Supreme Court of Korea already expressed that it supports the law school system and the Layers Association of Korea is proposing an “agreement under the condition” that practicing legal professionals be in charge of the education in the law schools.

The ministry also decided to review a “Chamshim-jei (system that allows selected citizens (chamshim-won) to participate in court decisions together with judges). Other revisions the ministry is considering to make swiftly include abolishing some regulations in civil law, such as the householder system and the marriage prohibition between members of the same family lineage, establishing alternatives of the superintendence system for criminals, and enacting the unified law for bankrupt businesses.

In addition, it plans to issue seven kinds of online civil certificates such as entry and departure to and from the country, foreigners’ registration, and selection of nationality, starting from next year. It will cost two billion won to establish this cyber civil service system.

Sang-Rok Lee myzodan@donga.com