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It is no exaggeration to say that Korea is the “heaven of lawsuit” as the number of criminal charges and civil suits in the country is 155 times and six times higher than that of Japan, respectively.
People tend to go to court even at a slightest provocation as they institute a suit to retrieve money even if they had not signed any written contract and file for criminal charges when the case can be resolved in a civil suit.
The number of criminal charges and civil suits has surged for the past five years, raising concerns over an urgent need to map out regulations to control needless lawsuits if no written contract had been concluded.
About 80 percent of criminal charges filed in the country are considered as minor cases that they are merely subjected to any proceedings.
“Although over 600,000 people are being charged each year, a significant number of cases are dropped as they cannot be considered as a crime. We cannot overlook the seriousness of the current legal situation as over-issued charges are perturbing prosecutors from inspecting more crucial cases such as bribery,” said Shin Kyeong-sik, the head of planning department at the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The custom of resolving civil suits in criminal court has increased the number of criminal charges unreasonably.
Furthermore, low legal fees have been pinpointed as one of the major contributors to the surging number of lawsuits.
Low legal expenses for the entire process of litigation, i.e. hiring a lawyer and other additional costs, that have to be paid to plaintiffs regardless of the ruling of the civil suit has made people remain adamant to filing charges.
[Bo-yung Kim / KHS]
[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]
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