Ilsan Court Library That Became an 'Island'

The Only Place to Access Real-Name Verdicts
Seats Increased but Users Remain Unchanged
"Return to Seocho Legal Town Needed"

The Court Library, which serves as the judiciary's research and development (R&D) center, has been facing numerous complaints about being difficult and inconvenient to use since it relocated from Seocho-dong, Seoul to Ilsan, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do six years ago. Given that Seocho-gu held a designation ceremony in July to establish the Seocho-dong legal complex as the representative judicial district of the Asia-Pacific region under the ‘Judicial Justice Hub’ initiative, there is growing demand for the Court Library to return to Seocho-dong. Legal professionals frequently need to consult practical legal books for their work, but the Court Library’s poor accessibility makes it difficult for them to visit.

Court Library located in Ilsandong-gu, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do
[Image source=Legal News]

When the Court Library moved to Ilsan in December 2018, public access and loan services were improved. Unlike before, when users were limited to judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and professors, the user base was expanded, but dissatisfaction increased.

Accordingly, in May last year, the Court Administration Office announced a bid for a research project to build a separate ‘Judiciary Knowledge Information Sharing Complex Center’ to share library functions. The final report published at the end of the same year proposed strengthening the Court Library’s public services and suggested spatial reallocation due to the saturation of storage capacity.

The report stated, “To strengthen the Court Library’s core role and public services, it is necessary to build a ‘Judiciary Knowledge Information Sharing Complex Center’ in a space adjacent to the Supreme Court, the parent institution,” and emphasized the need to make the center a landmark of the ‘Judicial Justice Hub,’ proposing a basic architectural plan suitable for its function, location, scale, and spatial composition.

A chief judge of a metropolitan court stressed that the library should be relocated back to Seocho-dong. He said, “I never understood why the library was moved to Ilsan, which has poor accessibility,” adding, “The primary users are judges and other legal professionals, and their hub is Seocho-dong, so it is natural that moving it far away has made it inconvenient to use.”

[Image source=Beomryul Newspaper]

Currently, the Court Library has announced a study titled ‘Reconfiguration of the Supreme Court Reading Room Space and Review of Public Use Service Improvements’ and plans to continue reviewing options based on the results of the study regarding opening the Supreme Court reading room to the public.

Although the number of seats in the ‘Special Judgment Information Reading Room,’ the only place where users can view judgments with real names after the library’s relocation, was increased by two, the number of users has not significantly changed, which is attributed to accessibility issues. Visitors to the special reading room can search and view all judgments registered in the court system except for family and juvenile cases. Until now, those wishing to search for judgments have had to engage in fierce online reservation battles.

According to data recently provided by the Supreme Court to the office of Park Gyuntaek, a member of the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee from the Democratic Party, an analysis of the usage status of the Special Judgment Information Reading Room from 2012 to the present showed an increasing trend: 3,545 users in 2012, 4,249 in 2013, 4,071 in 2014, 4,940 in 2015, 5,753 in 2016, 6,207 in 2017, 7,048 in 2018, and 6,736 in 2019. However, with the onset of COVID-19, the number dropped to 2,496 in 2020, and due to the reading room’s closure for more than six months because of the pandemic, it sharply decreased to 1,517 in 2021. After the special reading room was relocated to Ilsan, Gyeonggi-do in October 2021, the number rose to 5,126 in 2022, 6,484 in 2023, and 4,254 from January to August 2024, but it has not surpassed the numbers from the Seocho-dong era.

A lawyer at a mid-sized law firm said, “Even if I want to view judgments, I have to accumulate several cases to justify the trip to Ilsan, Gyeonggi-do, and it’s difficult to find the time to go,” adding, “For lawyers, ‘time is money,’ and traveling three hours round-trip just to check judgments is very inconvenient.” He also said, “It is necessary to provide at least a few seats in the Seocho-dong legal town.” He added that some lawyers even take leave to use the reading room.

Park Gyuntaek (58, Judicial Research and Training Institute class 21), a Democratic Party lawmaker, pointed out, “The Constitution of the Republic of Korea guarantees the public’s right to know by stating that ‘the trial’s hearing and judgment shall be open,’ ensuring fair trials. However, in reality, not only the general public but even lawyers often cannot obtain judgments and frequently have to request them from judges or reporters.”

He emphasized, “Judgments should be easily accessible to everyone, including legal professionals and the public,” and called for “active efforts such as improving the online judgment viewing system, considering additional library installations, and improving operational methods.”

Park Suyeon, Legal Times Reporter

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

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