Chief judges from courts nationwide will gather next month to discuss major pending issues facing the judiciary.
According to legal sources on the 28th, the Supreme Court will hold a nationwide chief judges' meeting from Mar. 12 to 13, joined by the head of the National Court Administration and chiefs of courts at all levels.
The meeting is a regular session held every March, where each court reports on key work and discusses pending issues.
The official agenda has not yet been finalized, but the judiciary's response to the so-called "three judicial reform bills" (the law creating the crime of legal distortion, the law on retrial petitions to the Constitutional Court, and the law to increase the number of Supreme Court justices), which were passed at a plenary session of the National Assembly under the Democratic Party of Korea's lead or are awaiting action, is expected to be discussed.
The Democratic Party of Korea passed the "law creating the crime of legal distortion," which punishes judges and prosecutors who distort the law in criminal cases, at the plenary session on the 26th, and on the 27th it handled the "retrial petition law," which would allow the Constitutional Court to review final Supreme Court rulings. A bill to increase the number of Supreme Court justices from the current 14 to 26 is also awaiting a plenary vote.
On the 25th, the Supreme Court held a nationwide chief judges' meeting at the Supreme Court building in Seocho-gu, Seoul, and discussed the three judicial reform bills for more than four hours. At the time, the chief judges expressed concern that the bills could cause serious side effects.