[Editorial] No Reason Not to Disclose More Court Judgments

Court opinions are vessels of judges' individual values and conscientious and a mirror reflecting the values of the times. That is what it means to say "judges speak through their judgments." In every country, famous judgments are coordinates for their societies and transcend their eras.

The People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD, Chamyeo Yeondae) looked through a case search system and found that 28 high-level judges had on average disclosed only 18 of their judgments. They average 27 years of service, so that is less than one decision per year. Those among them who are the chief justices of their local courts are people who have the potential to eventually become Supreme Court and Constitutional Court justices and be the final judgers of the law. That is what makes the legal philosophy and understanding of current issues as expressed in their judgments so important. Assessing their qualifications is essentially impossible when they choose to make public only a few of their thousands of decisions. It inevitably makes National Assembly confirmation hearings unreliable.

Currently the Supreme Court issues 20,000 judgments a year, and lower courts issue 450,000, but they release only 5 percent and 0.05 percent respectively. That is hard to understand, especially when a considerable number of the decisions in the textbooks and commentaries used by judges in training are ones that have never been made public. The courts say they are hesitant because of the need to protect individual privacy, but much more could be disclosed just by doing the electronic work of hiding personal names in the judgments already on the court system's network.

Last year the Supreme Court made public its judgment from thirty years ago on the "People's Revolutionary Party Reconstruction Committee" case, known as an instance of "judicial murder." If the courts have even the slightest intention to hide similarly "shameful decisions" by releasing them selectively, that would be like hiding the heavens with your hand. Disclosing more judgments would also increase the quality of judicial services by reducing the practice of copying decisions from similar cases. One hopes to see the Judicial System Reform Commission make profound improvements in the system.

The Hankyoreh, 6 January 2006.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]