SOUTH KOREA Law and Practice Contributed by: Jin Yeong Chung, Inhak Lee and Seung Hyeon Lee, Kim & Chang
7.5 Expert Testimony An expert may provide testimony in Korean civil pro- ceedings, upon appointment by the court. If there is need for an expert, a party may file an application with the court, explaining the need for expert testimony and the matters requiring the expert’s review and opinion. The applying party needs to pay the court expert’s costs in advance. The court may also appoint an expert on its own. A party can challenge the court’s appointment if there are circumstances that would prevent the expert from providing expert analysis in good faith. Although an expert’s opinion is not legally binding, the court will often respect the outcome of the expert examination or the expert report. The parties may pro- vide comments on the expert opinion, although it is up to the judge’s discretion whether to take them into account. A party may submit an expert report from a party- appointed expert. Such an expert report will be treated as a documentary exhibit and not expert evidence. In general, more weight will be given to a court-appointed expert than an opinion of a privately retained expert. 7.6 Extent to Which Hearings Are Open to the Public Civil court proceedings are, as a rule, open to public. The court may limit public access to a hearing if it considers that this might endanger national security, public peace and order, or good public morals. Even in a closed hearing, the presiding judge may specifi- cally allow persons to stay in the courtroom if deemed proper. 7.7 Level of Intervention by a Judge Generally speaking, there is a high level of intervention by the judge during civil case hearings in Korea. The presiding judge can seek clarification from the par- ties by questioning the parties about factual or legal matters and by urging the parties to present further evidence. In addition, the judge must investigate and determine sua sponte not only procedural matters (such as ele-
ments for a cause of action), but also certain substan- tive matters (for example, the degrees of contributory negligence between the parties, and quantification of alimony). A date of the court decision will be separately desig- nated, usually within two to six weeks from the date of the last hearing. For small cases with a claim amount of KRW30 million or less, a judgment may be rendered immediately after the final hearing on the same day. 7.8 General Timeframes for Proceedings Once the plaintiff files a complaint to the court, the court will serve the complaint together with a guide on how to respond to the defendant within one to two weeks. The defendant is required to file an answer to the court within 30 days upon receipt of the complaint. If deemed appropriate, the court may schedule a pre- paratory hearing after the exchange of the complaint and the answer to the complaint. It is common that the court schedules multiple main oral hearings, each with an interval of four to six weeks. The number of main hearings may depend on the complexity of the case and, especially, the number of witnesses. Once the main hearings are closed, the court will issue its judgment on the case, typically within two to six weeks. Usually the court will deliver a copy of the judgment to the parties or their counsels. It generally takes one to two weeks for the written judgment to be delivered. High Court Appeals Appeal to the High Court must be filed within two weeks after receipt of the written judgment from the court of first instance. Similarly, an appeal to the Supreme Court must be filed within two weeks after receipt of the written judgment from the court of appellate level. Proceeding in the appellate level is the same as in the court of first instance. However, at the Supreme Court there is usually no oral hearing and the proceeding is conducted based on written submissions only. As noted above, high court proceedings generally take 11 months and Supreme Court proceedings
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