해사법원 설립에 관한 연구 - 해사사건의 범위 확정을 중심으로

Abstract

Even though Korea is among the world's top 10 shipping powerhouses, there is no separate maritime court specializing in maritime case. Consequently, domestic shipping firms and other related companies in the industry inevitably select foreign governing law and jurisdiction court as their maritime litigation venue. The absence of the specialized maritime court leads to multiple complications that render the litigation proceedings inefficient, causing an excessive amount of national wealth overflow. In addition, since there is no professional maritime court which is the basis of a high value-added shipping service industry, Korean shipping industry has not been advanced. Accordingly, it is necessary for the Republic of Korea to establish a maritime court so as to handle maritime litigation efficiently and professionally. In order to establish a maritime court that specializes in maritime cases, the concept and scope of them must be defined first. This thesis examined the concept and classification of the cases in Korean law in order to define the exact concept of maritime cases. The concept of the maritime case is a general term for incidents related to ships and the sea and, those incidents are classified into maritime civil cases, maritime administrative cases, and maritime criminal cases by the type of maritime cases. After that, the concept and scope of maritime cases were identified through the process of comparing and analyzing the overseas maritime litigation system and the legal provisions that stipulate the jurisdiction of the maritime court. The United Kingdom and the United States, which have the most advanced the maritime litigation system in the world , define only maritime civil cases as maritime case. Unlike the two nations, China includes maritime civil cases and maritime administrative cases. China also places maritime administrative cases into the category, but the overall proportion of those cases is negligible. The issues on the concept of maritime cases were compared and analyzed through the existing Act on the establishment of the Korean Maritime Court. Provided that the range of maritime cases includes both administrative and criminal cases, it is hard to acknowledge the specificity of maritime cases. A problem, therefore, may arise as to securing the identity of the maritime court system as a professional court. Consequently, maritime cases are limited to maritime civil cases. Based on these contents, this thesis derived research results from the scope of maritime cases using legal statistical analysis. Estimating the number of applications by applying search terms through the court internal system show that an average of 6,292 cases per year were found. But the number of cases when applying the appropriate law as search terms was 1,424 cases per year, which was significantly small. It was because all cases which the keyword is related to were shown as the results. Unless the specific law is not applied, the search results extend through general civil cases including contract litigation or indemnification for damage litigation under civil law. And also there were many overlapping cases with organically related search terms. As the existing research is an organically related search word, it is expected that there must be a considerable number of overlapping cases. Nevertheless, it is estimated that the reason for the increase in the scope of cases through search terms is that the applicable law is designated as a foreign law, or other laws such as civil law, not related maritime administrative laws, are applied. Analyzing the existing research and estimating the number of cases through the court's internal system to define the scope of maritime cases on the premise of maritime cases results in that it was advantageous to secure the number of cases through major search terms rather than directly applying the maritime law. The result suggested that it is reasonable to stipulate the scope of maritime cases through major search terms to give the necessity of establishing a maritime specialized court. This thesis explained that in defining the concept and scope of maritime cases for the establishment of maritime courts, it is important not to harm the purpose of establishing maritime courts in consideration of the specificity and internationality of maritime cases as well as setting up the concept and scope of maritime cases in order to secure a sufficient number of cases. As a result, maritime cases should be limited to maritime civil cases, and the scope of maritime cases should be defined through major search terms.