The evolving circumstances of the times, such as artificial intelligence, are reflected in aspects of disputes that occur outside the court. When various disputes arising from cybercrime, blockchain-based smart contracts, and virtual asset trading are heard in courts, it becomes a new type of case that reflects the times. A growing number of voices are calling for the enhancement of the professional competencies of court employees who support judges in handling cases as there are an increasing number of new types of complex disputes. Meanwhile, since the examination promotion system—which has served as a means of verifying and strengthening the professional competencies of court employees—is scheduled to be abolished in 2025, it is necessary to put countermeasures in place for an alternative method.
This research investigates the professional competencies that the court employee ought to possess to effectively adapt to the changing conditions inside and outside the court and offer the public trustworthy judicial services as the goal of court organizations, potential areas for improvement in terms of obtaining the necessary competencies, and the methods by which foreign courts and other national institutions in Korea develop their professional competencies and analyzes the problems in an effort to improve them. Through surveys and in-depth interviews, it also identifies the ideal talents for court employees, how to strengthen professional competencies, and appropriate verification measures for achieving this ideal talent.
According to the survey, staff training is carried out in phases ranging between one and two and a half years in hierarchical countries with continental legal systems, such as Germany, Japan, and France. The United States (California), where each employee is in charge of developing their own professional competencies, also mandates certain hiatus periods and operates long-term, phased certification processes. Korea selects key talents from local and educational officials and offers long-term training of six to ten months or longer. However, merely three to four days of minimum job training have frequently been given to Korean court employees due to concerns about work gaps caused by trial schedules, and internal promotion examinations have taken the place of long-term training, such as that provided in foreign courts. Furthermore, since the internal promotion examination system is scheduled to be abolished in 2025, long-term training for court employees cannot be postponed any longer.
On the other hand, few new judges are being appointed for budgetary limitations, even though the average age of judges is rising with the unification of the legal profession, and the percentage of single judge cases—which make up the majority of first-instance civil cases—is also increasing. Additionally, there is very little increase in trial support personnel, such as law clerks, and even when there is, the majority of them are assigned to the settlement division of the district court or the high court rather than the single judge. This means that the single judge in the first instance, who is in desperate need of trial support personnel, has very little trial support personnel available to them. Consequently, there is a growing need to strengthen court employees' professional competencies and deploy them as trial support personnel for the single judge of the first instance.
However, the management of court employees in trial or non-contentious affairs, contrary to legal regulations, places an upper limit of grades 5 and below, which is the main reason why it is difficult for the key talent in these areas to find motivation for development, even if they try to advance their expertise in these fields. As a result, there is a concentration of key talents in judicial administration affairs, which mostly involves grades 2, 3, and 4. This situation eventually leads to the trial and non-contentious affairs being treated as inferior to judicial administration affairs. In addition, it was found that, of the quotas for court employees, those for grades 8 and 9 were the highest among national and local government employees in Korea, which is the primary reason for hindering the motivation for professional development, resulting in problems such as stagnance of promotions and proliferating longevity promotions. The survey results show that many respondents believe that professionalism should be the first concern for court employees and that a competitive exam is an adequate means of verification.
In light of the aforementioned, this research proposes that, in the short term, (1) the pre-competency certification system, which is a relaxed competitive examination, be implemented, granting certificate levels 1 and 2 to demonstrate the accomplishments of training and education, and (2) this pre-competency certification system needs to be applied for work training and the selection of candidates for promotion to grades 5 and 7. We also suggested that (3) a secondary path of grades 2, 3, and 4 for each specialty be established to ensure that trial and non-contentious affairs are not treated as inferior and that (4) a system of professional participation officers should be established to improve expertise in the trial and non-contentious fields, and that court investigators with expertise in each field ought to be allocated to courts at all levels to serve as trial support personnel. (5) It also proposes to dualize the rating system, expand the secondment system, and introduce job descriptions to establish an automatically generated job analysis system.
In the medium-to-long term, this paper suggests (1) implementing long-term education and training programs in phases for longer than six months, like in foreign courts, to strengthen expertise in each field while granting internal certificates. In addition, this paper also proposes (2) operating a professional public officials system for a core group of talented individuals who have had their expertise verified by internal certificates, having senior experts (grades 2 and 3), deputy experts (grade 4), and specialists (grade 5) who specialize only in trials and non-contentious affairs, to address the practical issue of not being able to increase the number of judges and law clerks so that we can realize the speedy and faithful trials that the public wants.
The Korean people decided to receive a faithful trial from experienced judges through the unification of the legal profession ten years ago, and they now believe that the system will be well-settled. For the new system chosen by the people to take hold, it is essential to expand and cultivate a core operating part to run it. No matter how good a system is, its implementation will not be successful if no one is present to operate it or if the operating person does not have the expertise. Only when there is a common understanding and cooperation amongst the legislative, judicial, and administrative constitutional institutions, the world-class justice system that the people desire could be constructed and maintained. We hope that concrete improvements will be made, such as long-term training programs for court employees and expanding the number of court personnel to take on additional duties.