Lawmakers with the ruling leftist Democratic Party in South Korea moved to pass legislation through the National Assembly potentially expanding the nation’s Supreme Court from 14 to 30 seats on Wednesday — hours after their leader, Lee Jae-myung, was inaugurated president.
The conservative People Power Party (PPP) boycotted the subcommittee vote on amending the Courts Organization Act on Wednesday, protesting the proposal to dramatically reshape the structure of the nation’s top court during a period of intense political turmoil in the country. Multiple reports in South Korean media suggested that the Democrats arrived at 30 for their proposed number of justices after first considering increasing the number on the bench to 100.
Drama unfolded in the subcommittee on Wednesday as Lee was expeditiously inaugurated into the presidency. The June 3 presidential election was a special election required after the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative who defeated Lee in the 2022 presidential race. Yoon was impeached in December after attempting to impose martial law on the country, allegedly in response to “subversive anti-state elements” hijacking the National Assembly. Lee is South Korea’s fifth president in six months.
The bill in question would increase the number of judges on the Supreme Court to a total of 30 by adding four a year, starting next year, until it reaches the proper quota.
The proposal passed shortly after the Supreme Court revived a legal case against Lee in May while he was serving as the head of the Democratic Party and campaigning for president. Lee faces charges of issuing false statements regarding a corruption case during his campaign for president in 2022. The Supreme Court’s ruling means that the case is remanded to the appellate court; if Lee loses, he could be barred from holding any public office, potentially forcing another special election.
Shortly after the vote, Lee moved to cancel the nominations of two judges to the Supreme Court during the interim presidency of Han Duck-soo, who held the office after Yoon’s initial impeachment. Lee’s office claimed that Han did not have the “authority” to nominate Supreme Court justices despite holding the presidency because he was an interim head of state, presumably with no public mandate. The Democrats attempted unsuccessfully to impeach Han shortly after Yoon’s impeachment.
According to the conservative South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, the Democrat-controlled Legislation and Judiciary Committee’s first subcommittee voted to advance the bill expanding the Supreme Court bench, absent the votes of any PPP lawmakers.
“The Democratic Party plans to bring the revision of the Courts Organization Act to the plenary session after passing it in the full committee meeting,” the newspaper reported.
PPP lawmakers protested that the Democrats were unfairly seeking to ram through legislation that could critically alter the makeup of the government.
“The biggest problem with this bill is that increasing the number of Supreme Court Justices will change many interests,” PPP lawmaker Joo Jin-woo was quoted as saying, “but discussions on the number of judicial research officials and the composition of the full bench have not been conducted at all.”
“It can only create tremendous confusion from the people’s perspective,” Joo lamented.
Democratic lawmakers argued that the current Supreme Court is overburdened, leading to a very slow judicial process that could be expedited by having more justices on the bench.
“The number of appeal cases submitted to the Supreme Court in a year is 40,000, and the number of cases each Supreme Court Justice has to handle is 3,000,” lawmaker Park Beom-kye said, according to Chosun Ilbo. “We concluded that a method of replenishing 4 Justices each year is exceedingly rational.”
The Korea JoongAng Daily observed that, “according to the judiciary’s official yearbook, each justice handled 4,038 cases in 2022 and 3,305 in 2023 — an average of 9 to 11 cases per day.”
“These numbers support concerns that appeals may not be receiving adequate judicial review,” it added, while suggesting, “still, unilateral action by the ruling party is problematic.”
Another potential issue the expansion could cause, the newspaper noted, is increasing the difficulty of getting to a verdict. Getting 30 people to agree on any one case is significantly more difficult than 14, a problem raised by presiding Supreme Court Justice Chun Dae-yeop, potentially causing “paralysis.”
The current chief justice of the Supreme Court, Cho Hee-dae, has not publicly weighed in with a preference for how many justices should be on the court, but emphasized that more public input is needed before making such a major change to the judicial branch of the country.
“I am hoping that there will be a forum for public debate,” Cho said on Thursday, according to the Yonhap News Agency. “I think there is a need to continuously explain and work with the National Assembly on what the Supreme Court’s inherent functions are under the design of the Constitution and the law and what the most desirable direction of reform is for the people.”
