By Yi Whan-woo
The Supreme Court said Wednesday that details of all rulings made on criminal cases will be available for public access from next year as part of efforts to introduce transparency and greater fairness to the legal system.
All courts, including district and appellate courts, will be required to disclose the text of rulings in all criminal cases which will then be open to access by citizens online or in hard copy document form. Such a system also will be expanded to civil cases from 2015, the top court said.
The move comes after the revised laws in July 2011 which first allowed disclosure of some court rulings.
The court currently publishes online verdicts of major cases on a case-by-case basis. But citizens who want to have full details of a judgment need to submit a separate request. This causes inconvenience to the public and has stirred debate and questions over the transparency of rulings and the public’s right to know.
The court will devise relevant rules and launch the service system from next year for citizens to access verdicts on criminal case rulings. In 2014, details about evidence and relevant documents for such verdicts will also be available.
To protect the privacy of those directly involved in a case, names will remain anonymous.
"The disclosure will allow the public to see how judges rule differently on each case, which is expected to boost transparency in the legal system and better protect the rights and interests of victims,” said Roh Young-hee, a spokesman for the Korean Bar Association.