Korea has about 1,000 judges sitting in the district, appellate and the supreme courts. They were given their robes after passing the state-run judiciary examination and two years of training. Each year, those who earn higher scores in various tests during the training course are appointed as judges and the rest go to the prosecution or directly go into legal practice.
Judges are supposed to make rulings in accordance with the law and their conscience. People have believed judges have clearer conscience and sharper intelligence than other civil servants because of their intensive selection process. The great importance of their mission to decide the right and wrong in human society should accompany a deep sense of responsibility.
Faults and mistakes of judges have occasionally been exposed but those were deemed isolated cases that could not affect the general public trust in the court. There did exist one shadowy area that made people uncomfortable ― the tradition of favoritism between the incumbent and retired judges in cases where the latter participate as legal counsel. This is a serious threat to legal justice, but the public have endured it to a certain degree, taking consolation from the much worse improprieties that prevail elsewhere in society.
People have begun to realize that they were too nave. The episodes of judges Lee Jung-ryul and Suh Ki-ho shattered the general public understanding about the quality of judges we have as the ultimate protectors of justice. In their SNS messages these judges not only conveyed their objections to certain administration policies but used words of the lowest vulgarity in calling the president of the republic. They defended their acts by saying they were exercising their freedom of expression.
Subsequent developments in the community of judges were further dismaying. Watching the high popularity of the movie, “Unbowed,” a court drama film based on a true story he was involved in as a member of a civil suit panel, Lee disclosed how the judges reached the decision that led the plaintiff to physically attack on the presiding judge later. For this act violating judges’ code of conduct, the Supreme Court gave him the heavy punishment of a six-month suspension.
Judge Suh who used the derogatory title of “gaka” in reference to President Lee Myung-bak when he criticized the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement on Facebook was denied reappointment last week. The Court Administration Office explained that his dismissal was not because of his controversial SNS message but because of his extremely poor performances on the bench over the past 10 years.
Actions against these two judges touched a hornet’s nest as liberal judges at courts across the country complained of what they believed were the top court’s retaliations against “conscientious judges’ rightful expression of their beliefs.” At some district courts, junior judges requested the convening of all-judges conferences to discuss the appropriateness of the Supreme Court’s actions. An association of liberal lawyers and the labor union of court employees issued statements to denounce the top court’s attempt to tame judges.
These reactions brought to light how our courts have transformed over the past decades into an institution simmering with ideological conflicts. What is gravely disappointing to the general public is that a significant proportion of judges now demand that society allow them to do anything they like outside courtrooms, be they outright criticism of government policies or direct curses at whoever they choose. Few would trust and respect a court made up of such judges.
As there is the “jeongyojo” group of radical teachers formed at primary and secondary schools in the 1990s, people will now have to be prepared for a judiciary version of jeongyojo version soon. If it is inevitable, we would expect them at least to use the decent language commensurate with the level of insight and intelligence that is required of the profession of judges in any human society. We do not want to see judges tweet using the words of aberrant juveniles.
