Former top justice grilled over Supreme Court trials scandal

SEOUL — A former South Korean top court justice was grilled on Monday over his alleged involvement in a judicial power abuse scandal believed to embroil a former Supreme Court chief justice.

Park Byong-dae, former Supreme Court justice who served as the chief of the top court’s administrative affairs body for two years through February 2016, appeared at the prosecutors’ office in Seoul for questioning, local TV footage showed.

The 61-year-old was accused of having engaged in the so-called “trial dealings”, in which then Supreme Court ruled in the politically and diplomatically sensitive trials in favor of the policy directions of the impeached President Park Geun-hye.

In return, then Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sungtae allegedly sought to win the impeached president’s approval for the launch of a separate court of appeals, known to have been a long dream of Yang that can increase the number high court positions.

The trials, which were used as bargaining chips in the dealings with the Park’s presidential Blue House, included the damages lawsuit filed by four South Korean victims against a Japanese steel-maker for their forced labor during the World War II.

A South Korean high court judged in 2013 that Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp should pay 100 million won ($88,000) per plaintiff in compensation of for the forced labor.

However, the final ruling by the Supreme Court had been delayed amid allegations that the Park’s Blue House called for the delay on concern about frayed ties between Seoul and Tokyo.

The Supreme Court under a new chief justice, who was named by President Moon Jaein, resumed hearings on the damages suit in August this year, delivering the final verdict in late October to order the Japanese company to pay the 100million-won compensation the forced labor victims.

Lim Jong-hun, who served as deputy chief of the Supreme Court’s administrative affairs body for two years through August 2017, was put under custody last week for his alleged involvement in the judicial power abuse scandal.

Another former top court justice was questioned by prosecutors this month, according to local media reports. to