Supreme Court justice Shin Young-chul |
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
A Supreme Court justice faces disciplinary action at an ethics committee for his attempt to influence the trials of anti-U.S. beef import protesters, after an internal investigative panel concluded that his actions could have put pressure on junior judges.
Shin Young-chul will become the first justice to face disciplinary action in the country's history.
The Supreme Court's special inspection team concluded Monday that Shin's email correspondences with junior judges were an attempt to influence the outcome of the politically sensitive trials they presided over, and could be seen as an abuse of judicial power.
The team headed by the court's administrative chief Kim Yong-dam said Shin had ``abused his position to influence the trials.''
The conclusion is likely to put additional pressure on Shin, who has already been called upon to resign.
Following the announcement, Chief Justice Lee Young-hoon of the Supreme Court ordered the senior judge to appear before the court's ethics committee.
``In the letters, Shin, the former president of the Seoul Central District Court, repeatedly urged junior judges to speed up the trials to complete them before the Constitutional Court ruled whether or not the law banning out-door protests after sunset was constitutional,'' Kim said.
``Shin has claimed his emails were to give advice, not pressure. However, there are judges who translated them as a means to exert pressure. Given this, we concluded his emails were designed to influence the trials,''
Kim also said he had confirmed that Shin privately contacted judges who had released some of the protestors on bail. ``This is an apparent abuse if power,'' he said.
The investigator added that his team had not found any evidence that Chief Justice Lee ``instructed'' Shin to influence the trials. In the emails, Shin indicated that Lee shared his message.
The team launched an investigation on March 6, a day after KBS reported that Shin had sent emails to 22 junior judges between last November and December to speed up the trials.
During the 10-day probe, inspectors questioned all those allegedly involved in the unprecedented scandal in the judiciary including Chief Justice Lee, and looked into all the emails Shin sent.
According to the emails, he encouraged the junior judges to quickly complete the trials of anti-U.S. beef imports protestors, saying, ``It is a virtue for a judge to complete such burdensome trials on their own rather than handing them over to their successors.''
pss@koreatimes.co.kr
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