Constitutional Petition Filed against `Judiciary Personnel Regime`

A senior judge of a high court of justice filed a constitutional petition against the current judiciary personnel regime on the ground, `The system is violating constitutional spirit and blocking judiciary independence and democratization.`

A senior judge of a high court of justice in Seoul, Moon Heung-Su (who has passed 11th judiciary test) requested to determine the constitutional petition to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on April 6, saying that judicial promotion to senior judges, performance evaluation, judge reappointment regime, laws on wages of judges and supreme court rules thereof are violating equality and personal rights of judges.

This is an unprecedented case that an incumbent judge officially raised an issue against the general judiciary personnel regime.

Senior judge Moon claimed, `The evaluation on judges, which is referenced for promotion is done unilaterally, whimsically, and secretly, and for this reason, judges are influenced by the inclination of the chief justices of the courts or are not free from their interferences, which make it more difficult to sentence fair verdicts.`

Senior judge Moon also added, `The President can influence the courts` decision as much as he can, for instance, by appointing the chief justice of the supreme court who in turn assigns important judicial courts to judges of certain inclinations.`

Additionally, he noted, `When judges are filtered through selective promotion system only based on grades, tenure of judges are not guaranteed, which brings about various bad effects such as granting favoritism to judges-turned-lawyers as a result of their droppings from promotion.

He claimed, `When obedient judges are promoted to high positions while judges of firm conviction are excluded from the courts, then the ensuing harms are done to people of weak positions` and `To prevent this, the judges should have guaranteed retirement age and the judges of equal judicial experience should receive equal treatment.`

Senior judge Moon graduated first on list from the Judicial Training Institute, wrote memos urging judicial reform during Daejeon court irregularities incident in 1999, and organized `cyberspace joint forum for judges` with 33 other judges at the end of last year.

Jung-Eun Lee lightee@donga.com