“Concerns Raised About Judicial Functions Being Compromised and System Paralysis”
Refusal to Deploy Personnel to Martial Law Command “Ended by National Assembly Resolution”,
Minister of Justice Park Sung-jae and Director of Court Administration Cheon Dae-yeop./News1 © News1 Reporter Lee Kwang-ho,
‘(Seoul=News1) Reporters Jung Jae-min, Lee Bal-geum, and Lim Se-won = Cheon Dae-yeop, Director of the Court Administration, stated on the 3rd during a Supreme Court executive meeting held shortly after President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, that significant doubts were raised regarding whether the conditions for declaring martial law were met.’,
Director Cheon stated at the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee meeting on the 6th, “There were significant doubts based on the constitution, the Martial Law Act, proclamations, speeches, and precedents.”,
Director Cheon explained, “Firstly, whether the disruption to social order was extreme enough to significantly hinder judicial functions; secondly, whether the claims in the proclamations that judges were intimidated to the extent that the judicial system was paralyzed are valid; and whether legislative dictatorship has indeed led to the paralysis of the judicial system, necessitating emergency measures to suspend or restrict judicial authority and normal operations, or if this was a crisis that could be resolved by military forces, and if limiting parliamentary functions violated the express provisions of the constitution.”
He added, “As a result, it was decided not to comply with the martial law command’s deployment request.”
Earlier, following the proclamation of the first martial law command on the 3rd, the Supreme Court received a request from the martial law command to dispatch one court administrative officer, but did not comply. The court’s safety manager reported the martial law command’s request to the administrative office’s executive meeting, but this was after the National Assembly had passed a resolution demanding the lifting of martial law.
At that time, the Supreme Court’s Court Administration, under the direction of Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae after President Yoon’s declaration of martial law, convened an emergency meeting gathering Director Cheon Dae-yeop, Deputy Director Bae Hyung-won, senior executives, and advisors. The administrative office meeting lasted about three hours.
When asked whether President Yoon Suk-yeol had the authority to order the National Intelligence Service Deputy Director to arrest the ruling party leader, Director Cheon replied, “As far as I know, he does not have that authority.”