[Lim Woong] A citizen’s plea to the judiciary

The recent verdict in the insurrection trial of former President Yoon Suk Yeol was life imprisonment. What has lingered in the days since is not only the sentence itself, but the emotional dissonance it has produced. Many citizens listened to the prosecution’s closing argument, heard “death,” and expected the bench to move in that direction. When the judgment instead returned a life sentence, people felt the court heard the same facts they did, yet responded from a different moral universe.

In the wake of the verdict, I have heard at least four distinct ways of understanding the decision.

First, there is relief, even gratitude, that the case did not end in acquittal. For those who feared that power might ultimately protect itself, a “not guilty” verdict would have felt like a final repudiation of democratic norms. In that light, life imprisonment looks like a line held under pressure: imperfect, but real.

Second, there is bitter satire about a rationale reportedly emphasized at sentencing: that because the insurrection did not succeed, leniency is warranted. Many citizens, myself included, recoil at the suggestion that failure dilutes the moral meaning of an attempt. People scorn the judge’s reasoning: Is it less wrong because it failed? We cannot forget that it was ordinary citizens, not the administration, who held fast to constitutional order and helped prevent the coup.

Third, there is discomfort with the court’s language and analogies. Some observers noted, with genuine bewilderment, the judge’s citation of a Western monarchy. The reference to Charles I appears intended to underscore that acts framed as “governance” become legally accountable when they violate constitutional order. Yet many found it oddly theatrical. It felt as though the courtroom lacked the confidence to confront a contemporary Korean wound, reaching for distant symbolism rather than speaking to the nation’s own history.

Fourth, some people believe that even in a case this serious, the court must sentence within legal limits, guided by statute, precedent and what was actually proven in court. From this angle, restraint is not softness but institutional discipline. Those who hold this view often add a warning: If we demand ruthless punishment whenever we are most outraged, we risk losing the very idea of law we hope to defend.

I write from the standpoint of an education professor, not a legal scholar. What I know about law comes mostly from civic life: the Constitution in broad strokes, due process, and the conviction that courts owe the public explanations that make sense.

Yet after watching recent rulings and reading excerpts of decisions, I find myself unable to assent. Judicial language too often feels out of touch. When I compare that distance with the authority and privileges judges enjoy, I cannot avoid a blunt conclusion: The professional and personal character displayed by some members of the higher judiciary appears, at times, unworthy of the power entrusted to them.

This discomfort naturally becomes curiosity about the social and professional ecosystem that produces higher-court judges. What kinds of families did they grow up in? What was their schooling like, from primary and secondary education through university? How do they learn to define professional ethics — and how are they expected to grapple with it over a lifetime? What counts as growth in a profession that can so easily mistake distance for dignity?

Korea should avoid a judiciary drawn disproportionately from a narrow pipeline of elite law programs. We need judges from a wider range of regions, socioeconomic backgrounds, educational pathways and, most importantly, lived experiences in Korea. Before taking the bench, has a candidate been a social worker, a small-business employee, a public defender, an engineer, a union representative or a prosecutor who spent years in the field? Do we have meaningful pathways and serious consideration for candidates who bring that kind of experience?

In today’s polarized Korea, political orientation matters. Yet I find myself asking different questions first. What kind of person is this judge? What struggles have they endured? What philosophy of human beings, not merely of statutes, do they bring to the bench? In short, what lives have they lived that enable them to recognize the lives of others?

Of course, distrust in the justice system is not produced by judges alone. Much of our discontent belongs to the legislature, which has too often failed to make laws that capture the ethos of contemporary Koreans. And yet, despite that failure, public deference toward judges persisted for a long time.

Now, however, the robe is losing its magic. Faced with the judiciary’s posture toward an attempted insurrection and recurring reports of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, many ordinary citizens only see judges as members of an outdated elite. The separation of powers, once felt as protection, is sometimes perceived as a shield against accountability, while the privilege of public service becomes entitlement — and, at times, a cover for greed.

I offer no simple solution, only a plea. The judiciary must protect the everyday workings of Korea’s constitutional democracy, not the privileged few. It must offer the next generation a clear account of the democratic order this country has built at such cost, and speak to the public not as subjects, but as the very source of its legitimacy.

Lim Woong

Lim Woong is a professor at the Graduate School of Education at Yonsei University in Seoul. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.