EXPLAINER New law lets president pick 22 of 26 Supreme Court justices by 2030

Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae enters the court building in southern Seoul, March 6. Newsis

Korea’s judiciary has experienced its biggest upheaval in nearly four decades as a trio of judicial reform laws took effect Thursday, expanding the Supreme Court, creating a new constitutional appeals channel and criminalizing “distortion” of the law by judges and prosecutors.

One of the key components of the reform is a revision of the Court Organization Act, which will boost the number of Supreme Court justices from the current 14 to 26 by 2030. This change would give President Lee Jae Myung sweeping influence over its future composition: By the end of his term in June 2030, he is expected to appoint 22 of the 26 justices.

Beginning in March 2028, the court will add four new justices a year for three consecutive years, gradually building up to 26 seats while Lee fills each new vacancy as it opens.

The government and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) say the expansion is necessary to cope with a growing caseload, given that each justice currently handles an average of 3,478 cases a year. With more justices available, they argue, the Supreme Court can share the workload more evenly, speed up decisions and conduct more thorough reviews of appeals.

But critics warn that the expansion hands Lee outsized power over the top court’s — and the judiciary’s — future makeup, with liberal justices expected to fill most of the new seats.

Inside the courts, there is also concern that expansion may worsen the problem, given that increasing the number of Supreme Court justices and judicial clerks each justice depends on for work is expected to drain talent from already overstretched lower courts.

President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a meeting with his secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae, Thursday. Newsis

Alongside the structural shake‑up, the new constitutional complaint system allows litigants to bring Supreme Court rulings before the Constitutional Court if they think their basic rights were violated. This effectively means rulings by the Supreme Court are no longer final.

Under the new law, a person can ask the Constitutional Court to cancel a court ruling within 30 days of confirmation if the ruling conflicts with an existing Constitutional Court decision or the court did not follow legally required procedures. If the Constitutional Court agrees, it can void the ruling and send the case back.

The ruling bloc defends this as a necessary mechanism to bring judges under constitutional control and to safeguard fundamental rights.

But critics fear the new system will encourage most losing parties to take their cases to the Constitutional Court, dragging out disputes and driving up the emotional and financial cost of litigation, while also risking a crushing case overload for the court itself.

The Constitutional Court expects 10,000 to 15,000 complaints a year, three to five times the roughly 3,000 constitutional complaints it currently receives. Its estimation may prove low as the law allows for repeated complaints.

Another urgent issue is what happens after the Constitutional Court cancels a ruling. There are currently no specific procedural rules within the ordinary courts for handling such cases, nor any guidance on what should occur if a new ruling again fails to follow the reasoning of the Constitutional Court.

On the first day of the new system, 11 petitions had already been filed, as of 2 p.m. The first came from a Syrian man seeking to overturn a Supreme Court ruling made in favor of immigration officials’ deportation order following his criminal conviction.

The third major reform, the “law distortion” offense, targets judges, prosecutors and others performing criminal justice functions who deliberately twist the law to help or harm specific individuals. Violators could face up to 10 years in prison.

If a judge or prosecutor intentionally misuses the law, they could face criminal punishment. That includes knowingly applying a statute when its legal requirements are not actually met, deliberately not applying a statute in order to steer the outcome of a trial or investigation, destroying or concealing evidence, or acknowledging crimes while knowing there is no lawful evidence. This change opens the door to criminal complaints being filed against judges or prosecutors.

Ruling DPK politicians say that the measure will deter abuse of power and arbitrary interpretations.

But across the legal community, there are growing worries that the law could interfere with judicial independence. Judges and prosecutors fear that losing parties will routinely accuse them of criminal conduct, forcing them to stick to the safest and most conservative interpretations.

On Thursday, lawyer Lee Byung-chul of law firm IA said he filed a criminal complaint against Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae and Justice Park Young-jae, accusing them of distorting the law in the court’s 2025 ruling on the president's election law violation case last year. Police said they will launch an investigation into the allegations.