Supreme Court Backs Plan to Increase Number of Judges

The Supreme Court will promote a plan to increase the number of judges from 2,074 to 2,544 by 470 until 2010 to reduce their heavy workload.

The Supreme Court submitted its written plan to revise “the Fixed Quota System of Judge Allocation in Court for Each Level” as above to the National Assembly on July 17. The plan said the number of judges is supposed to increase by 50 in 2006, 80 in 2007, 100 in 2008 and 120 in 2010, respectively.

The Supreme Court said, “A sharp increase in judges is needed because court judges for each level are overloaded with work and in order to successfully implement a participation system by the general public in judiciary proceedings, which is under discussion in the Judiciary Reform Committee.”

According to the Supreme Court, the number of cases jumped from 525,735 to 1,545,934 from 1990 to 2003 (194% increase), but the number of judges only increased from 1,044 to 1,743, a rise of 67 percent.

The Supreme Court judge count increased by 350, increasing by 70-100 each year for four years from 2002 to 2005, after revising the Fixed Quota System of Judge Allocation in Court in 2001.

Regarding this, Woo Yoon-keun, the executive secretary of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly to the ruling party, said, “I agree with the need to add more judges, but the details of adjusting the number of judges should be considered by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

Yeon-Wook Jung jyw11@donga.com