Supreme Court slaps 6 month suspension on judge

The Supreme Court's disciplinary committee on Monday ordered a six month suspension of duties for a judge who illegally released inside information on a controversial case ruling.

The committee, headed by a Supreme Court justice and made up of seven judges, lawyers and scholars, ruled that Lee Jeong-ryeol, a senior judge on the Changwon District Court, intentionally broke the law and compromised the dignity of the court.

"The disciplinary action has been decided because Lee failed to adhere to elementary rules that aim to uphold the trust and confidence in a judge and ensure the independence of the bench," a spokesperson for the Supreme Court said.

Lee, who gained notoriety for his outspoken criticism and parody of President Lee Myung-bak on social network services (SNS), had been the presiding judge in a high profile 2007 appeals case involving a dismissed university professor.

The case has fueled public criticism of the judiciary as a whole in recent weeks, with some attacks centered on Lee and other judges involved in the ruling. A surprise box-office hit about the case released this year helped to renew interest in the incident.

In a memo released on an internal Internet bulletin site that can only be accessed by court workers, the senior judge claimed that initially the court wanted to rule in favor of the ex-Sungkyunkwan University professor, yet discovered serious discrepancies in his claims.

By making public the deliberation process in the case, he violated rules that only permit the Supreme Court to comment on the judicial deliberation process.

The case involved Kim Myeong-ho, who was dismissed from his university post after he divulged an error in the school's admissions test in 1995. He was subsequently fired from his post, and was unsuccessful in his legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Kim, however, initiated another legal struggle in 2005, but the court again rejected his claim. This failure caused the former professor to attack Park Hong-woo, then a Seoul High Court judge, with a crossbow in 2007. Kim was sentenced to four years in prison after the incident.

The Supreme Court said the latest disciplinary measure reflects the need to censure breach of rules, and pointed out that Lee was aware of the consequences of his actions.

The senior judge did not show up at the disciplinary committee meeting even though he was asked to do so.

Others on the bench, however, said that the actions taken against Lee were harsher than the violation warranted, and hinted it may have been due to his ridicule of President Lee, which had already earned him a formal reprimand for his superior.

"The six month suspension is too severe and this view is shared by many," a Seoul judge, who declined to be identified, said. He pointed out that another judge who had been convicted of personal wrongdoing only received a five month suspension.

The disciplinary action, in particular, has attracted attention because it comes on the heels of a decision by the Supreme Court last week not to reinstate Seo Ki-ho, a judge for the Seoul Northern District Court, who openly lampooned the president on various SNS.

Under South Korean law, judges have their job performance reviewed by the Supreme Court every 10 years, and those considered "unfit" for the job are dismissed.

Related to the decision not to reinstate Seo, some front-line judges said they will hold a meeting on Friday to discuss the expulsion.

Some judges claimed that the Supreme Court must explain why Seo was not reinstated to his post and called for transparency in the decision making process. (Yonhap News)