Leave Judges Alone
Judicial Branch Is Shaking Basis for Own Existence
The independence of judges in performing their duties and the freedom related with their rulings are the very essence of judicial power. They should be free from all outside influence, including pressure from government agencies and upper courts, and even judiciary administrative supervision should not deter this independence.
It is beyond dispute in this regard what was wrong when Supreme Court Justice Shin Young-chul repeatedly told junior judges to speedily wrap up trials against candlelight protesters, who opposed the imports of U.S. beef, when he was head of the Seoul Central District Court last year. The trials were delayed as one judge at the court asked the Constitutional Court whether the ban on protest rallies at night was constitutional or not.
Justice Shin said the hastening of trials was a justifiable exercise of administrative supervisory right, but judges involved said they felt pressed to hurriedly conclude the trials. Everyone, even laypeople not involved in law, has experienced how haste negatively affects good judgment. And Shin didn't mention many other trials at the district court that had been going on for more than a year.
It was not the first time Shin had abused his ``administrative supervision.'' Earlier, he told a judge presiding over a case on progressive teachers suspected of violating the anticommunist law to postpone the ruling. Could that be to give the judge time for a more cautious ruling?
What one can see in all this is a top judge who is too sensitive to political trends, particularly the atmosphere among the power elite. Even before the pressurizing scandal broke out, Justice Shin tried to allocate all candlelit protest trials to conservative judges, but was forced to give it up in the face of protests from junior judges. Just beforehand, lawmakers from the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) reportedly grilled Shin at the National Assembly for ``not dealing with young (progressive) judges properly.'' In turn, the GNP legislators' move came right after President Lee Myung-bak complained about judicial ``populism'' ― the presidential term for any siding with the public.
Surprisingly, Shin said his emails also reflected Chief Justice Lee Young-hoon's thinking. Even more astonishing was Lee's acknowledgement of it, even asking back, ``Should judges be affected by such a thing?'' It would have been less shocking had Lee not put judges' independence ahead of all else in his inaugural address.
Judges are humans, of course, with their own ideological preferences, as shown by the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court, often split by ideological lines. And it is true the ongoing scandal smacks of the ideological battles permeated in every sector of our society having finally spread to the judicial branch. There should be no reason, however, for senior judges to influence their juniors' independence in performing their duties in any way.
More seriously in the case of Justice Shin, he initially lied about most of these issues, particularly during his confirmation hearing at the Assembly, and perjury is a crime subject to a prison term of one to 10 years.
Justice Shin should step down and Chief Justice Lee ought to apologize if for no other reason than reestablishing the ``rule by law" that President Lee has emphasized so frequently. The Supreme Court, scheduled to announce the results of its investigation into the two top judges this week, should make public everything as it is.
If not, the judicial branch will suffer a serious loss of popular confidence, and the nation's justice system and democracy will take another big step back.