hankyoreh

A sitting chief judge recently posted a blistering criticism of the ruling last week finding former National Intelligence Service chief Won Sei-hoon not guilty of violating Public Official Election Act. The comments by Kim Dong-jin, a 45-year-old chief judge at the Seongnam branch of Suwon District Court, were directed at Seoul Central District Court chief judge Lee Beom-gyun, 50.

Court culture in South Korea is such that judges typically try to avoid commenting on what other judges do. So it’s quite startling to see one of them openly assessing the outcome of another’s trial - and all on the court’s internal network, no less. Also, Kim is Lee’s “junior,” a younger alumnus of the same university and an underclassman by four years at the Judicial Research and Training Institute, which makes his comments particularly unheard-of in a culture so sensitive to seniority. If anything, it’s a signal of just how problematic the ruling in the Won case was.

In Kim’s judgment, the rationale for Won’s acquittal on charges of election interference was “sophistry.” The court said although the actions of the NIS did constitute political “involvement,” they did not meet the election law definition of “campaigning,” since they lacked purposefulness, proactivity, and premeditation. The implication was that they should meet a stronger standard than simple involvement to constitute “interference.” Kim called his “schematic and mechanical formal logic.” To illustrate the contradiction, he drew the analogy of a court acquitting someone of drunk driving because although he did drink and drive, his “purpose” was not drunk driving per se, he wasn’t “proactive” about it, and he didn’t draw up a plan beforehand.

Kim concluded that the beginning of the end for constitutionalism in South Korea came in Sept. 2013 - the month that the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported on allegations that then-Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook had a secret child out of wedlock. “Everyone in the legal world was so terrified that they didn’t say anything,” Kim said. The prosecutors who tried to find the truth were driven out; those who concealed triumphed again and again. The Won ruling, Kim concluded, was merely a continuation of the same thing. “The ruling was marked by ulterior motives, a focus on [the judge’s] own career advancement,” he declared.

There’s no way for us to know how the courts feel about all this. But if somebody within the court feels this way, there must be at least some kind of context and precedent. And presumably the judicial leadership, including Chief Justice Yang Seung-tae, bears no small responsibility for this. The Supreme Court took the post down within three hours of it going up. But the ruling it criticized has struck a severe blow against equity in the judicial system. One way to ease the public’s distrust would be set up a forum where the courts can have a serious debate over the ruling in Won’s case. Another is to ensure that the ruling in the NIS appeal conforms to principles of common sense and justice.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]