[Editorial] Trying to Thwart Courts' Examination of Their Past

The Supreme Court has sent official requests to major courts around the country asking them to gather judgments from "public security" cases of yesteryear. It would be hard to say that the Supreme Court has fully begun the work of facing unresolved questions of the past just because it has started collecting judgments, because, as new chief justice Lee Yong Hun says, the court is merely "looking at the flow of past cases."

Certain media and others, however, have fully begun trying to thwart the effort of reflecting on the judicial branch's past. They're trying to hold things back with arguments about how the effort will "could mean the courts destroy their own authority" or that the idea is to "excuse violators of 'public security' laws." You even hear people asking, "How can a third person judge cases that judges decided in accordance with the law and their consciences?"

If the courts had throughout their history handed down judgments that were consistent with "law and conscience" then we wouldn't even have to talk about facing up to the past. On some occasions the courts surrendered to the powers that be and sometimes they willingly got in bed with them, and no one can deny that they played the role of co-conspirators in military dictatorship. Establishing the judicial branch's authority begins with setting that shameful past right and by atoning for the wrongs. Who knows how to make sense of the argument that reflecting on the past would hurt the courts' authority.

Now is the time to encourage and keep watch on the judicial branch so that it is able to be reborn through thoroughly facing up to its past. Simply examining the flow of past judgments is not enough. Truly facing up to the past means thoroughly re-examining cases that were distorted or fabricated, setting those judgments right, and making sure such things never happen again. It also means restoring the honor of those the victims of what happened and giving them compensation. There should also be no delay in weeding out the judges who joined in collusion with political authorities to issue wrongful judgments.

The Hankyoreh, 30 September 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]