'Increase of 370 Judges' Judicial Staffing Act Amendment Passes Judiciary Committee Subcommittee... Will It Clear the National Assembly?

The Prosecutor Quota Act Amendment Passed with a Reduced Number Compared to the Original '220'

The partial amendment bill to the Judges' Quota Act (Judges' Quota Act amendment), which aims to sequentially increase the number of judges by 370 to resolve trial delays, has passed the Subcommittee on Bills of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee. It has been 1 year and 5 months since the bill was proposed. Attention is focused inside and outside the judiciary on whether the amendment will pass the full meeting of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee and be submitted to the plenary session.

Kim Do-eup, Chairman of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, is striking the gavel at the plenary meeting of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee held at the National Assembly on the afternoon of the 7th. On the same day, the committee approved the agenda to adopt the plan for the confirmation hearing of Oh Dong-woon, the nominee for the Chief of the High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Office.

According to the National Assembly on the 7th, the Legislation and Judiciary Committee held the first subcommittee on bill examination immediately after adjourning the plenary session in the afternoon and passed the Judges' Quota Act amendment and others. If the Judges' Quota Act amendment smoothly passes the full meeting of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, it is expected to be put to a vote at the last plenary session of the 21st National Assembly at the end of this month.

Currently, the domestic judge quota is 3,214, which has been frozen for 10 years since 2014. The amendment aims to sequentially increase the number of judges by 370 from 2024 to 2028. Judge increase was emphasized by Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae of the Supreme Court, who stated at his first press conference after taking office in February that "to resolve trial delays, increasing the number of judges is essential."

The Judges' Quota Act amendment, proposed as a government bill on December 27, 2022, had been pending for over a year in the first subcommittee of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee due to differences between ruling and opposition parties over the 'prosecutor increase.' According to the minutes of the first subcommittee meeting on July 13 last year, Democratic Party members argued that considering the seriousness of trial delays, the Judges' Quota Act should be passed separately and the Prosecutors' Quota Act should be approached cautiously. However, the People Power Party countered, saying, "If criminal trial divisions are expanded, the number of prosecutors should also increase accordingly, so discussions should be held to handle the Prosecutors' Quota Act and Judges' Quota Act together." After this discussion, no further debate on the amendment took place in the first subcommittee of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

However, at the first subcommittee meeting held 10 months later, it is reported that the ruling and opposition parties agreed without major disagreements to pass the Judges' Quota Act amendment.

On the same day, the partial amendment bill to the Prosecutors' Quota Act also passed the first subcommittee along with the Judges' Quota Act amendment. However, the scale of the prosecutor increase was decided to be 206, reduced from the originally proposed 220.

Hong Yoon-ji, Legal Times reporter

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

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