National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik meets with Court Administration Chief Cheon Dae-yeop at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul on the 24th. Yonhap News. 

As the Democratic Party of Korea amplified allegations of Chief Justice Jo Hee-dae's 'election interference' based on the process of referring President Lee Jae-myung's case to the Supreme Court's en banc panel, Court Administration Chief (Supreme Court Justice) Cheon Dae-yeop stated, "The referral to the en banc panel was decided after review by all justices."

At a plenary session of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee on the 24th, Chief Justice Cheon explained, "Regarding President Lee's case, the justices promptly began examining the trial records of the lower court ruling to grasp the facts and issues and read the submitted documents without delay to familiarize themselves with the content." He added, "The Chief Justice, who presided over the proceedings, confirmed the opinions of each justice individually before proceeding with subsequent steps."

During the committee meeting, Democratic Party lawmakers, including Representative Jeon Hyun-hee, claimed that "Chief Justice Jo intervened midway and referred the case, which was initially assigned to a division, to the en banc panel." The implication was that Chief Justice Jo played a decisive role in the Supreme Court's en banc panel overturning the appellate court's conclusion and remanding the case to the high court.

In response, Chief Justice Cheon stated, "Legally, cases appealed to the Supreme Court are fundamentally subject to en banc review as a principle, but for the sake of swift processing, they can be handled by a division." He elaborated, "From the moment this case was filed, all justices began reviewing the records immediately."

He further explained, "However, even in an en banc case, a presiding justice must be appointed, so a specific justice is designated as the presiding justice through random computer allocation, and once the presiding justice is determined, it is automatically designated as if it were assigned to that division." He continued, "This case was proceeded with by referring it directly to the en banc panel, as if it were being processed from the very beginning."

In other words, the referral to the en banc panel was not a solitary decision by Chief Justice Jo, but a decision made after the review of all justices, with the initial assignment to a division merely a function of the computer system. Chief Justice Cheon also emphasized, "This is not an unusual occurrence."

The reason for processing cases in this manner, where a case is assigned to a division and then referred to the en banc panel, is due to how the allocation system is designed. This system is designed to allocate cases after the deadlines for submitting the grounds for appeal and the response have passed, to prevent the occurrence of 'former-official favoritism' should a presiding justice be designated before the submission of these documents.

Meanwhile, regarding the hearing scheduled for the 30th, which is being led by Democratic Party lawmakers, Chief Justice Cheon stated, "It appears that the focus of the hearing is on the content of the en banc ruling." He added, "Under the National Assembly Inspection and Investigation Act, which prohibits the National Assembly from investigating cases that are currently under trial, I believe such cases are not subject to investigation."

Yonhap News