Top judge embroiled in suspicions of political bias

Supreme Court Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su arrives at work in Seoul's Seocho District, Thursday. / Yonhap

By Jun Ji-hye

Supreme Court Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su is facing suspicions of attempting to side with the ruling bloc and thus harm judicial independence, after a sitting judge claimed that Kim had stopped him from stepping down to allow the National Assembly to impeach him.

On Thursday morning, a lawyer for Lim Seong-geun, a senior judge of the Busan High Court, revealed a transcript of a recorded conversation between Kim and Lim during their meeting in May last year.

The revelation came hours before the Assembly put to vote a motion to impeach Lim for meddling in several politically sensitive trials presided over by junior judges during the previous administration of conservative President Park Geun-hye. The motion was passed during a plenary session later that day and marked the first impeachment of its kind.

Lim was one of several judges who had been brought to trial on charges of abusing judicial power to meddle in politically sensitive rulings. The Assembly is only authorized to impeach sitting judges, and Lim was one of several which the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) was seeking to impeach.

At the time of the meeting with Kim, Lim submitted his resignation, citing health problems after undergoing surgery, according to his lawyer.

In the transcript, Kim said, “I need to consider political situations and influences as well as legal aspects. As you know, the ruling party is pushing for impeachments (of you and other judges). Think about this, if I accept your resignation, what would the Assembly say to me?”

Judge Lim Seong-geun / Yonhap

Lim faced charges of meddling in several trials, including one for the former Seoul bureau chief of Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper who was indicted in October 2014 for defaming then-President Park in an article about her whereabouts during the Sewol ferry disaster.

The DPK has begun to seek the impeachments of Lim and other judges as they were acquitted in trials early last year. The party led a group of 161 lawmakers to submit to the Assembly, a motion to impeach Lim, Monday.

“A majority of lawmakers participated in submitting the motion as Lim has damaged the independence of the judiciary,” DPK floor leader Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon said during a party meeting. “A ruling from the trial stated that Lim had violated the Constitution, but he was acquitted. The court could not take disciplinary measures against him either. It is time for the Assembly to fulfill its responsibility.”

Before the recorded transcript was made public, the Supreme Court chief justice denied media reports that he rejected Lim's resignation to allow the Assembly to impeach him. Kim said he had just told Lim to focus on his medical treatment for a while.

Following the revelation, however, Kim made a public apology, saying his “memory was unclear.”

Meanwhile, a conservative civic group filed a complaint with the prosecution against Kim, claiming that he had been derelict in his duty by refusing to accept Lim's resignation and defamed him by saying the judge had never submitted the resignation.