Bar association calls for resignation of chief justice |
The Korean Bar Association on Thursday urged the head of the country's top court to resign over alleged remarks he made degrading lawyers and prosecutors.
"It is very regrettable that the Supreme Court's chief justice made comments ignoring the roles of the court, prosecution and the bar, and fundamentally denying the order of law maintained by the three parties," Cheon Gi-hong, chairman of the association, said in a statement.
"We demand that Chief Justice Lee Yong-hun immediately step down to assume responsibility for causing the public to lose trust in the entire legal circle with a series of inappropriate remarks," the statement said.
Lee irritated lawyers and prosecutors by saying, "Documents produced by lawyers are full of sophistries intended to deceive people," and, "Testimonies written during closed-door interrogation by prosecutors cannot be more important than those made in a court."
He made the remarks when he inspected a high court and a district court in the southwestern city of Gwangju a week ago.
On Tuesday, he went too far by reportedly telling judges in Daegu, about 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, to "toss away the prosecution's investigation records."
Chief prosecutor Choung Sang-myoung also expressed regret over the top justice's remarks.
"The recent series of comments made by the chief justice are regrettable because they can mean that he does not respect the role of the prosecution, a state organization responsible for ensuring the people's human rights and firmly establishing the order of the law," Choung said in a statement read by Kang Chan-woo, spokesman for the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.
The recent dispute appears to have begun when prosecutors searched and summoned a senior judge, equivalent in position to a vice minister, in August for their investigation into a high-profile corruption scandal involving senior judges. The embattled judge later quit the post and was arrested on charges of influencing court proceedings in return for payment.
In an apparent act of retaliation, the court turned down a number of arrest warrants sought by prosecutors to investigate the scandal.
Shortly after the bar association demanded the chief justice resign, the Supreme Court expressed regret that the demand was issued.
"It is regrettable that the bar association issued the statement despite our repeated explanations about the real intent of the chief justice's remarks," the court said in a statement.
Lee meant to say that judges should always try to get to the bottom of an incident through statements in court rather than using what is stated before prosecutors, the court added.
Seoul, Sept. 21 (Yonhap News)
