The Seoul Central District Court will hold a full judges' meeting on the 19th to discuss criteria for composing panels dedicated to insurrection cases and judges in charge of warrants. This is a follow-up procedure under the Special Act on Criminal Procedures for Crimes of Insurrection, Treason, and Rebellion, which took effect on the 6th.
The Seoul Central District Court will convene a full judges' meeting (chaired by Presiding Judge Oh Min-seok) at 2:10 p.m. that day to discuss the criteria for forming the dedicated insurrection panels. The meeting will be held behind closed doors.
Items on the agenda include the number of dedicated panels, the qualifications of warrant-only judges, and the requirements for judges composing the dedicated panels. The Seoul Central District Court held a full judges' meeting on the 12th but failed to reach a conclusion, so it decided to continue discussions that day.
The special act requires the Seoul Central District Court and the Seoul High Court to each establish two dedicated panels for insurrection, treason, rebellion, or related cases deemed of national importance. Based on the standards set by the full judges' meeting, the task allocation committee will draw up an allocation plan, and, after a vote by the full judges' meeting, assign judges to the dedicated panels.
In principle, the dedicated panels are established from the first instance, but a transitional provision allows cases already underway at the time the law took effect to continue before their current panels. If the Democratic Party's second comprehensive special counsel investigation is launched and additional indictments are filed, the dedicated panel at the Seoul Central District Court is expected to take them on, and there is also speculation that cases the insurrection special counsel handed over to police without completing investigations could, after indictment, fall under the dedicated panels depending on the circumstances.
There is an expectation that cases such as the former President Yoon's alleged role as the ringleader of an insurrection, which are awaiting a first-instance verdict, would become subject to the dedicated panels starting from the appeals stage. At a full judges' meeting on the 15th, the Seoul High Court decided to establish two dedicated insurrection panels and to consider adding more depending on future developments, and plans to appoint judges to the panels immediately after the regular judicial personnel announcements on the 30th, organize the dedicated insurrection panels, and put them into operation starting Feb. 23.