Judges' Top 'High-Difficulty Cases'... "Cases with Extensive Materials Are the Most Challenging"

After the Implementation of Electronic Civil Litigation
The Case Records Have Become More Extensive

As the volume of records that must be read for trial proceedings increases, judges’ sighs are also growing.

Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae has identified “trial delays” as the judiciary’s most serious problem and expressed his intention to devote all efforts to resolving this issue during his term. Meanwhile, as the amount of materials submitted to the courts continues to grow, voices calling for countermeasures are emerging.

[Photo by Beopryul Newspaper]

Judges Rank ‘Cases with Extensive Materials’ as the Most Difficult

In the recent first-instance ruling on the Blue House’s alleged interference in the Ulsan mayoral election case, the trial records alone amounted to 40 volumes (about 20,000 pages), and the evidence records reached 130 volumes (about 65,000 pages). In the case of former Chief Justice Yang Seung-tae, prosecuted for abuse of judicial administrative power, the investigation records alone totaled 180,000 pages.

Even in ordinary cases that are not large-scale, the volume of records is increasing.

According to a report titled “A Study on Judges’ Workload and Its Influencing Factors” published by the Judicial Policy Research Institute at the end of 2021, corporate and tax cases filed at the Seoul Central District Court submitted an average of 76.3 pages of records in 2014, but by 2019, the average had increased to 508.9 pages. This represents a 567.2% increase. In environmental cases, 150.7 pages were submitted in 2014, while 900.9 pages were received in 2019.

This trend is somewhat reflected in the number of days taken to process cases. For corporate and tax cases, the processing period was 219.4 days in 2014 but extended to 332.4 days in 2019, an increase of 16.3%.

Judges who receive case records also feel the actual burden. According to a survey included in the same research report, 75.8% (514 judges) of respondents cited “cases with extensive materials” as the most difficult or time-consuming. The next factors were “cases with complex and diverse issues” (14.6%) and “cases lacking established precedents or with ambiguous judgment criteria due to gaps or contradictions in related laws” (6.5%).

As cases become increasingly complex and diverse, the volume of preparatory documents submitted to the courts, as well as additional briefs and evidence materials, is also growing. In civil cases, the introduction of electronic litigation has further expanded the volume of submitted case records.

In August 2016, the Supreme Court implemented a revised Civil Procedure Rules limiting the length of written submissions to a maximum of 30 pages in principle, to ensure efficient, prompt, and thorough civil trials. However, since this is not a mandatory provision, many cases do not comply, and enforcing it is difficult.

A judge at a high court in the Seoul metropolitan area said, “Preparatory documents are generally submitted within the 30-page limit, but even when they are 30 pages, they may be submitted multiple times or with reduced line spacing,” adding, “It is true that cases exceeding this volume are becoming more frequent.”

A judge at the Seoul Central District Court said, “As the absolute volume of case records has grown enormously, the time invested in each case inevitably increases,” and added, “Instead of simply comparing the duration of trial delays, it is necessary to calculate a trial delay index that considers the volume of case records using an appropriate metric, such as an ‘undisposed case distribution index.’”

Meanwhile, the Judicial Policy Research Institute (Director Park Hyung-nam) plans to conduct a study next year on appropriate task allocation according to case difficulty.

“Necessary for Prompt Trials” vs. “Infringement on the Right to a Fair Trial”

Within the legal community, opinions are divided between those who argue that limiting the volume of submitted documents to some extent is necessary for prompt and clear trials, and those who contend that such limits could infringe on the right to a fair trial and therefore should not be uniformly imposed.

A chief judge at the Seoul Economic District Court said, “While it is true that the court must hear all claims to guarantee the right to a fair trial and the defendant’s right to defense, there are cases where unnecessarily lengthy documents are submitted,” and added, “If some limits are set, the time spent reviewing documents would decrease, potentially shortening the entire trial process, including the time until the first hearing.” However, there is also the view that no matter the reason, it is difficult to restrict this right as it is constitutionally protected.

Han Su-hyun & Park Soo-yeon, Legal Times Reporters

※This article is based on content supplied by Law Times.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.