• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.187-197
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• 2013

The incompetency and quasi-incompetency system regulated legal incompetence in the past is insufficient for protections of the adults with insufficient abilities of judgement, the criticism has been continued that the system is not efficiently respond to their rights and legal relationship formation. At last, the government introduces adult guardianship system through revising the civil law. At this point, just several months prior to the enforcement of adult guardianship system, we should be prepared to issues which may occur in the actual operation of the system. Japan has high similarities in social and culture matters with Korea and in the general operation of its adult guardianship system is similar to Korea's, Therefore, Korea should be prepared for the basis to implement the optimized system through in advance understanding the trend in Japan. The study reviews the trends of Japanese adult guardian's type, and draws suggestions for Korea by finding activity requirements and subjects focusing on the currently increasing corporation guardiancy.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.125-153
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• 2012

The adult guardianship system has been introduced through amendments of Korean Civil Code for the first time in the March 2011(Act No. 10429, 7. 1. 2013. enforcement). The adult guardianship system has the main purposes to provide a lot of help vulnerable adults and elderly, and protect them on the welfare related with property act, treatment, care, etc. There could be a controversy about whether the protection Legal Guardian's consent(formerly known as the Mental Health Act) or permission of the Family Court(revised Civil Code) are required to, or the Mental Health Act should be revised, when mental patient will be hospitalized forcibly. The author proposes that mental patient with Adult guardians should be determined by Legal Guardian's consent and approval of the Family Court, but mental patient without Adult guardians could be determined by Legal Guardian's consent. The issue of Withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment could be occurred due to the aging society and the development of modern medicine, and this has provided difficult, various problems to mankind in Legal, ethical, and social welfare aspects. The need of Death with dignity law or Natural death law has been reduced for a revision of the Civil Code. Therefore, on the issue of Withdrawing of life-sustaining treatment, in the future, intervention of the court is necessary in accordance with the revised Civil Code Section, and Organ Transplantation Act and the brain death criteria may serve as an important criterion.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.241-269
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to examine the arguments about the conceptualization and the assessment of mental capacity and legal competence concerning the adult guardianship. Based on these literature reviews, the author analysed Mental Capacity Act 2005 of United Kingdom. The act conceptualizes legal competence as a concept dependent on a specific decision, time, and environmental support or convenience. According to the act, the assessment of the legal competence shall be made with ensuring the person all the viable supports and environmental conveniences. And it appears that the hierarchical assessment system of the act assures that the more the decision is important the more professional and more formal assessment shall be used. Based on these findings the author suggested several implications for the legislation of a new adult guardianship act in Korea.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.483-490
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• 2014

This research intends to analyze the implications of current adult guidance system from an angle of people with developmental disabilities in an sudden changed information age. Through it, this research intends to seek improvement of adult guardian system for people with developmental disabilities, a main group of the system, from an angle different from the aged. It focuses on significance and improvement for the significance of adult guardian system for people with developmental disabilities, which are weak for self-decision. Furthermore, for the improvements, this system should be able to be information exchange and communities through the using internet in the cyber space.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.155-206
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• 2023

When a person with diminished mental capacity refuses necessary medical care, normative judgments about when paternalistic intervention can be justified come into question. A typical example is involuntary hospitalization for people with mental disabilities, traditionally governed by mental health law. However, Korean civil law reform in 2011 introduced a new form of involuntary hospitalization through guardianship legislation, leading to a dualized system to involuntary hospitalization. Consequently, a conflict has arisen between the 'best interest and surrogate decision-making' paradigm of civil law and the 'social defense and preventive detention' paradigm of mental health law. Many countries have criticized this dualized system as not only inefficient but also unfair. Moreover, the requirement for the presence of 'mental illness' for involuntary hospitalization under mental health law has faced criticism for unfairly discriminating against people with mental disabilities. In response, attempts have been made to integrate guardianship legislation and mental health law based on mental capacity. This study examines the legislative process and framework of the Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, which reorganized the mental health care system by fusing guardianship legislation with mental health law based on mental capacity. By analyzing the case of Northern Ireland, which has grappled with conflicts between guardianship legislation and mental health law since the 1990s and recently proposed mental capacity as a single, non-discriminatory standard, we aimed to offer insights for the Korean guardianship and mental health systems.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.303-333
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• 2014

The right to self-determination in regard to one's body is a key element of human dignity, privacy and freedom. It is constitutionally enshrined in the guarantee of human dignity, in the general right of personality and, most concretely of all, in the right to physical integrity. In principle No-one may trespass another person's body against his will, whether this act improves his physical condition or not. This right of self-determination applies equally to healthy and to sick people. Hence everyone has the right either to permit or to refuse a medical treatment, unless he can not make a rational decision. If the person does not consent himself, for whatever reason, another one must do for him as guardian. Representation in consent to medical treatment is therefore the exception of self-determination rule. This article explored, 1. who can consent to the medical treatment in the case of the mentally incapacitated adult and the infant, 2. what kind of consent to the medical treatment can the deputy determinate for the mentally incapacitated adult and the infant, 3. when the deputy can not determinate without permission of the court, and 4. what can the doctor do in the case of conflict between minors and guardians.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.257-267
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• 2016

The research subject is 8 mothers who put their physical/mentally impaired children in a group home, as the research method, this study conducted an in-depth interview survey. The participants of this study collected data from the in-depth interview on 8 mothers who put their disabled children to the group home. In the result of open coding, total 34 concepts, 28 subcategories and 13 categories were derived. The core category in the selective coding was 'establishing restorative relationship through entering a group home after encountering the limit of nurture.' Practical Strategies include the following; first, it's necessary to provide psychology counselling consequent on a mother's nurturing phase, and this study proposes a program for a father having a child with disability; in addition, there is the necessity of having to arrange the differentiated facility for physically/mentally impaired people, which meets the needs of the relevant people. At a level of policy, this study suggested the necessity of having to take into account the minimization of poverty problem facing a family having a disable child through the caring card, necessity of the use of good-natured card, and medical-social-welfare-based intervention, expansion of facility-touring class installation, and use of adult guardianship system, and differential payment of disabled child nurturing allowance consequent on income quantile, etc.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.103-128
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• 2023

According to the current act of Decision-Marking in Life-Sustaining Medicine, the decision to withhold or discontinue life-sustaining treatment is primarily based on the wishes of a patient in the dying process. Decision-making regarding life-sustaining treatment for these patients is made by the patient, if he or she is conscious, directly expressing his/her intention for life-sustaining treatment in writing or verbally or by writing an advance medical directive and physician orders for life-sustaining treatment. It can be exercised. On the other hand, if the patient has not written an advance medical directive or physician orders for life-sustaining treatment, the patient's intention can be confirmed with a statement from the patient's family, or a decision to discontinue life-sustaining treatment can be made with the consent of all members of the patient's family. However, in the case of an unrelated patient who has no family or whose family is unknown, if an advance medical directive or physician orders for life-sustaining treatment are not written before hospitalization and a medical condition prevents the patient from expressing his or her opinion, the patient's will cannot be known and the patient cannot be informed. A situation arises where a decision must be made as to whether to continue or discontinue life-sustaining treatment. This study reviewed discussions and measures for unbefriended patients under the current law in order to suggest policy measures for deciding on life-sustaining treatment in the case of unbefriended patients. First, we looked at the application of the adult guardian system, but although an adult guardian can replace consent for medical treatment that infringes on the body, permission from the family court is required in cases where death may occur as a direct result of medical treatment. It cannot be said to be an appropriate solution for patients in the process of dying. Second, in accordance with Article 14 of the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision Act, we looked at the deliberation of medical institution ethics committees on decisions to discontinue life-sustaining treatment for patients without family ties.Under the current law, the medical institution ethics committee cannot make decisions on discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment for unbefriended patients, so through revision, matters regarding decisions on discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment for unbefriended patients are reflected in Article 14 of the same Act or separate provisions for unbefriended patients are made. It is necessary to establish and amend new provisions. In addition, the medical institution ethics committee must make a decision on unbefriended patients, but if the medical institution cannot make such a decision, there is a need to revise the law so that the public ethics committee can make decisions, such as discontinuing life-sustaining treatment for unbefriended patients.