Judges to call for FTA task force

Some 170 judges nationwide are planning to urge the Supreme Court to establish a task force to study whether the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement is unbalanced and infringes on the rights of Koreans.

The team will be aimed at drawing up guidelines for possible renegotiation with the U.S., which President Lee Myung-bak promised ahead of the pact’s ratification on Nov. 22.

According to media reports, Judge Kim Ha-neul of the Incheon District Court has started writing a petition to file with the Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae to establish the study group. He is reportedly planning to meet Yang in the near future.

In the petition, he is to deliver the concerns of 170 or more judges and say that the judiciary needs to study the content to ease public antipathy.

The FTA has been denounced by opposition political parties as well as civic groups and unions. They have been holding rallies, mainly in central Seoul, calling for the reversal of the agreement’s ratification since it passed the National Assembly without the presence of opposition parties.

“The Korea-U.S. FTA is a legal contract. It is the court’s job to seek whether a certain contract is fair or not. If there is any unfairness in the agreement, we should clarify it and table it for the renegotiation,” Kim wrote in his article posted last Thursday on the court intranet. His remarks have spurred the judge’s class action.

Kim also argued that the controversial clause on investor-state dispute settlement is highly likely to be detrimental to Korea as it could pose a threat to the autonomy of the Korean judiciary.

“If the court could point out things to be mentioned and worked at the renegotiation table, I believe public anxiety and antipathy toward the administration will be settled and the society will be harmonized once again,” he wrote.

Kim was the latest judge to voice objections to the FTA. Fellow Incheon District Court Judge Choi Eun-bae wrote on his Facebook account: “I will not forget the day when the president and trade officials who are pro-American to the bone sold out the nation’s economy and people,” right after the pact was ratified.

Judge Lee Jeong-lyeol of the Changwon District Court also said in a radio show that the pact is likely to cause friction within the country since it allows foreign investors to sue the Korean government through a third-party court.

“It deprives the Korean judiciary of the right to judge our own affairs,” he said.

Still, whether Kim and his peers’ request will be accepted is questionable, observers say. Yang, considered rather conservative, has repeatedly asked judges to remain neutral over politically sensitive issues to maintain the authority of the judiciary.

Despite the Supreme Court’s ethics committee’s decision not to discipline judges who have expressed their opinions through private media, Yang on Friday said, “Judges should be always extra careful in what they say.”

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)