Judges nationwide to meet to discuss controversy over Lee’s election law violation case

Judges nationwide will hold an extraordinary meeting later this month to discuss the controversy surrounding presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung’s election law violation case, a judges’ association said Friday.

The meeting will be held May 26 at the Judicial Research and Training Institute in Goyang, northwest of Seoul, after the association requested it to its chair, Judge Kim Ye-young of the Seoul Southern District Court, “due to the need to discuss and organize our position on suspicions about the courts’ political neutrality and the issue of damage to confidence in the judiciary.”

Controversy has arisen after the Supreme Court made an unusually quick decision last week to send Lee’s case back to the Seoul High Court for a retrial, citing errors in its acquittal of the presidential front-runner of charges of making false statements during the previous presidential race in 2021.

Lee’s liberal Democratic Party (DP) denounced the decision as interference in the upcoming June 3 presidential election, as a guilty verdict could bar him from running in the race.

The judges’ association said it requested the meeting as the condition for consent from at least one-fifth of its members was met.

The association is made up of delegates of judges from all levels of courts nationwide. There are currently 126, members, including the chair.

Key agenda items for the meeting will likely include whether to express regret over the Supreme Court’s unusually quick ruling prompting suspicions about its political neutrality.

Also likely to be discussed is whether to define the DP’s calls for Supreme Court chief justice Cho Hee-dae’s resignation as an infringement on the independence of the judiciary.

In response, Lee described the judges’ meeting as part of “the process to address problems,” emphasizing the importance of judicial independence.

“The courts must remember the deep trust and high expectations the public holds for the judiciary … That trust should not be broken,” Lee told reporters during a campaign stop in the southeastern city of Gimcheon.