A revision of the Courts Organization Act to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices to 30 passed the threshold of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee's first subcommittee on the 4th under the leadership of the Democratic Party of Korea. 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 Legislation and Judiciary Committee passed the revision of the Courts Organization Act, which increases the number of Supreme Court Justices by 4 each year up to 30, in its first subcommittee meeting held that day. Previously, the Democratic Party had proposed the revision of the Courts Organization Act through lawmakers Kim Yong-min, Park Beom-kye, and Jang Kyung-tae.
The current number of Supreme Court Justices is 14. Looking at the proposed bill to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices, lawmaker Jang Kyung-tae's main content is to increase the number of Justices by 100. Lawmakers Kim Yong-min and Park Beom-kye proposed a bill to increase the number of Justices to 30.
In this context, the Legislation and Judiciary Committee proposed an alternative to the plan by lawmakers Kim Yong-min and Park Beom-kye to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices to 30. The original plan, which contained the contents of increasing the Justices by 8 per year after the enactment of the law, was revised to increase the Justices by 4 each year.
In response, members of the People Power Party unanimously refused to vote, expressing their opposition. Lawmaker Jang Dong-hyuk left before the subcommittee concluded.
Lawmaker Yoo Sang-beom, a member of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee from the People Power Party, said, "When Democratic Party lawmakers Park Hee-seung and Seo Young-kyu did not agree to vote on the bill, Democratic lawmakers gathered in the Legislation and Judiciary Committee chair's office after the recess and discussed for 50 minutes to change the law," adding, "They presented that as an alternative verbally and unilaterally enforced the vote. This is what the Democratic Party's parliamentary dictatorship will look like for the next five years."
Lawmaker Joo Jin-woo from the People Power Party said, "The biggest problem with this bill is that increasing the number of Supreme Court Justices will change many interests, but discussions on the number of judicial research officials and the composition of the full bench have not been conducted at all," stating, "It can only create tremendous confusion from the people's perspective."
In response, lawmaker Park Beom-kye, the chair of the first subcommittee of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, said, "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," adding, "We concluded that a method of replenishing 4 Justices each year is exceedingly rational."
Meanwhile, the increase in the number of Supreme Court Justices is part of the judicial reform promised by President Lee Jae-myung during the presidential election. However, due to criticisms that the bill proposing "100 Justices" is excessive, the Democratic Party's Election Countermeasure Committee instructed to retract it.