Judges getting political

The judiciary is swarmed with political judges. Judge Seo Gi-ho of the Seoul Northern District Court put on his Twitter and Facebook accounts postings Thursday that lampooned President Lee Myung-bak. The previous day, he told the Internet news site OhMyNews that he supported Choi Eun-tae, a judge of the Incheon District Court, who called President Lee "a staunch proponent of the U.S. who has sold out the nation." In radio talk shows, the judges continued their politically biased attacks on the free trade agreement with the U.S. despite the Supreme Court`s guidelines for ethics of public officials.

Social networking services are media that are on the border between public and private life. Making politically lopsided comments on radio and Internet media, however, is in direct violation of the decree on judges` political neutrality. While podcast commentators and the people might lampoon the president, judges should not do that in public because this could cause public doubts over the fairness of their rulings.

After a judge of the Incheon court recently proposed on a internal bulletin board of the judiciary to form a task force to study if the free trade deal encroaches upon national judicial sovereignty, some 170 other judges supported the offer and plan to submit a petition for the study. Many international mediators, including the World Trade Organization and the International Court of Justice, exercise judicial rights in place of sovereign states. In international disputes, a country`s exercise of judicial sovereignty could affect fairness. The view that the free trade agreement encroaches on Korea`s judicial sovereignty results from ignorance of international law.

Many judges are said to be so busy that they take work home. Do judges who announce their political opinions on social and other media have enough leisure time? Judge Seo faced public criticism last year for writing just 72 syllables in a ruling and filled the rest by copying documents submitted by an attorney.

In the 1960s, Japan had a series of unusual rulings by progressive judges with similar inclinations as those of Korean judges. The head of a Japanese court who worried about the judges` lopsidedness sent a letter to one of the progressive judges, only to start controversy and receive a warning. The head of Japan`s highest court overcame the political leanings of judges, however, by taking the same disciplinary action against the progressive judge and excluded other progressive judges from major cases. In Korea, Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae should deeply contemplate on what the most urgent task for the judiciary is.