A local court will hold an unprecedented hearing on Tuesday over the legality of South Korea's holding of 12 North Korean defectors that Pyongyang claims have been abducted by the Seoul government.

The Seoul Central District Court will open the hearing in the afternoon in line with a request by an association of progressive lawyers to determine whether the defectors are being legitimately held by the South Korean government.

The North Korean women, who worked at a Pyongyang-run restaurant in China, arrived in the country in April. The communist regime has since claimed the South "lured and kidnapped" its workers, demanding that they be returned to their loved ones in the North.

The Seoul government maintains that they opted to come here "on their free will." It has held them at a government protection facility to question them over their decisions to defect and offer them basic resettlement education.

The lawyers' association, named Lawyers for a Democratic Society, has demanded that the government allow it to interview the defectors. But the government has rejected the demand, saying it is "legitimately protecting" the group.

The National Intelligence Service said that the North Koreans in question are unwilling to attend the hearing as they fear the disclosure of their identities, and remain reluctant to make any public statements before the court.

It is the first time for a court to hold a hearing on the legality of the government's temporary protection of North Korean defectors. (Yonhap)