The Seoul High Court on Friday sentenced former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae to six months in prison, suspended for one year, for abusing power through wrongful interference in trials. This reverses a lower court acquittal on all 47 charges related to judicial power abuse. Prosecutors accused Yang of using trials as bargaining chips with the Park Geun-hye administration to advance his bid for a new appeals court.
The Seoul High Court's Fourth Criminal Division handed down the sentence to Yang Sung-tae, who served as chief justice from 2011 to 2017, reversing the lower court's acquittal on all 47 charges mostly related to abuse of judicial power. Prosecutors alleged that Yang used trials as bargaining chips in dealings with the administration of then-President Park Geun-hye to promote his ambition to establish an appellate court division, seeking a seven-year prison term.
In the same case, former justices Park Byong-dae and Ko Young-han were also acquitted by the lower court. The appellate bench sentenced Park to a six-month suspended term, mirroring Yang's punishment, while upholding Ko's acquittal. The court convicted Yang on two of the 47 charges, finding that the judiciary under his leadership abused power by interfering in specific trials and that Yang and Park colluded. For the remaining charges, it upheld the lower court's findings that either subordinates did not abuse power or Yang was not complicit.
Yang's lawyers stated they would immediately appeal the ruling. The interfered trials included a compensation case filed by victims of Japan's wartime forced labor and the National Intelligence Service's involvement in a presidential election. He faced additional charges of approving anti-constitutional ideas by Park and Ko, compiling a blacklist of judges, and creating a slush fund.
Yang was indicted under arrest in February 2019 and released on bail in July that year after 179 days in detention. He was the first chief justice to be arrested as a criminal suspect. This verdict highlights ongoing concerns over judicial independence and past political interference in South Korea's judiciary.
