Research Report
Ⅰ. Backgrounds and Purposes
▶History of Korean Legal Research Institute’s Research on People’s Legal Consciousness
○ KLRI has been conducting Research on People’s Legal Consciousness since 1991, followed by researches in 1994, 2008, and 2015
- Research on People’s Legal Consciousness studies the people’s perceptions toward the law
- Historically, the research started in the 1960’s by Professor Ham Byun Choon of Seoul National University, and KLRI’s research on legal consciousness can be considered as a follow-up research
- The goal of this research is to understand the status quo of our nation’s constitutionalism by studying the difference between traditional perceptions and Westernized laws
▶ Need to develop an index for Research on People’s Legal Consciousness
○ Need for a periodic and systematic research
- Research on People’s Legal Consciousness has not been conducted since 2015
- The research can provide basic legal reference for national research institutes
- A systematic and periodic research is needed for the establishment and development of legalism
- A new index and survey which break away from the tendency to follow past researches is needed in order to establish and develop legalism
▶ Comparison to foreign survey on legalism
○ Internationally, civil organizations and academic organizations have presented legalism indexes by nation
- A legal consciousness index to understand the level of legalism should be prepared in reference to these indexes
- A legalism index should be prepared to seek directions for developing legalism in our nation
Ⅱ. Major Content
▶ Historical analysis of KLRI’s Research on People’s Legal Consciousness
○ Compares existing legal consciousness indexes
○ Analyzes surveys on legalism
▶ Review of past surveys on legal consciousness
○ Establishment of survey goals
- Understanding the importance of setting clear goals in deciding the directions for the research on legal consciousness, this research gives basic suggestions on establishment of research and survey goals for future researches
○ Analysis of survey issues
- Analyzes and proposes issues of survey formality. The issues include the issue incorporating concepts and values in survey answer choices which may bring confusion in analysis, and the issue of including two or more questions in one questionnaire
- Analyzes and proposes issues of survey content. The issues include the fact that the contents of the survey are outdated
- Analyzes and proposes issues of survey method. Through expert consultation, suggestions were made on whether it is necessary to maintain the method of time series analysis
▶ Research and analysis on foreign legalism indexes
○ Analyzes the Rule of Law Index from the US World Justice Project (WJP)
○ Analyzes the Global Competitiveness Index from World Economic Forum (WEF) report
▶ Composition of legal consciousness and rule of law index
○ Design indicators such as the nature of the law, the emotion of the law, the purpose/function of the law, the recognition path/view of the law, the understanding/ education of the law, the life of the law, and the change of the social values, etc.
○ Protection of basic rights, control of authority of the National Assembly and the government, independence of the judiciary, and compliance with laws by individuals, society and the state are designed as law-abiding indicators.
▶ Establishment of link between legal consciousness research and national affairs
○ National affairs performance is consisted of drafting and enforcement
○ Research is conducted on people’s perceptions on the legal system of major national affairs
Ⅲ. Expected Effects
○ Contributes to preparing index and survey for future research on legal consciousness
○ As a methodological research on legal consciousness, suggests ways to utilize social scientific methods in legal studies
○ Through a consciousness research on legal system related to national affairs, provides basic legal reference to help check performance of national affairs and to design policies based on public consensus