[2020 National Audit] 3 Out of 10 Civil Cases Exceed Sentencing Period

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] It has been revealed that 3 out of 10 civil lawsuits exceeded the statutory judgment period.

On the 7th, Song Kiheon, a member of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee (Democratic Party of Korea, Wonju-eul, Gangwon), analyzed data submitted by the courts and found that among 5,297,862 first-instance civil main cases handled in the past five years (2016 to June 2020), only 3,448,852 cases, or 65.1%, were processed within the statutory judgment period of five months.

The current Civil Procedure Act stipulates that first-instance civil main cases must be judged within five months, and appellate or supreme court cases must be judged within five months from the date the records are received.

On the other hand, the number of cases judged after more than two years increased nearly twofold from 5,558 cases in 2015 to 9,499 cases in 2019. In particular, the number of first-instance civil main cases judged after more than two years rose from 5,558 cases in 2015 to 7,267 in 2016, 7,585 in 2017, 8,390 in 2018, and 9,499 in 2019, nearly doubling over five years.

Looking at the average processing period of civil main cases by court, except for Seoul Western District Court at 4.1 months, Seoul Southern District Court at 4.8 months, Changwon District Court at 4.9 months, and Cheongju District Court at 5.0 months, all others showed processing periods exceeding five months.

In the case of Seoul Northern District Court, the average processing period, which took 3.8 months in 2015, increased to 6.6 months as of June 2020. Except for Changwon District Court, all courts showed an increase in average processing periods as of June 2020 compared to 2015.

In appellate courts, it was found that none of the courts met the statutory judgment period. Ulsan District Court, which showed the fastest average processing period in the first instance, recorded an average processing period of 12.4 months in the appellate court, making it the slowest among appellate courts in handling civil main cases. Meanwhile, Seoul High Court and Daejeon High Court recorded average processing periods of 6.8 months and 6.9 months respectively, processing appellate cases the fastest among appellate courts.

Assemblyman Song stated, "Although the courts are striving for change to resolve the judicial scandal, judicial services directly related to the people's property rights must not be neglected," and added, "It is urgent to prepare measures so that judges can focus more on their core duty of judgment."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.