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According to the survey conducted by market research firm Realmeter, only 27.6 percent of the respondents said they trust court decisions, while 63.9 percent said they don't.
Those who consider themselves progressive gave 35.1 points to court rulings against the full score of 100, while centrists and conservatives gave 38.9 points and 33.3 points, respectively.
The figures display the respondents' strong dissatisfaction with the judiciary regardless of their ideological inclinations. As Realmeter pointed out, the judiciary has lost trust because the rulings on chaebol owners, lawmakers and politicians have been too lenient.
Public distrust is running deeper especially after a probe discovered that the judicial administration under then-Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae abused its power to curry favor with the presidential office.
An internal investigation team found that the Supreme Court under Yang sought to use politically sensitive trials as bargaining chips in dealing with the Blue House to support his bid to create a court of appeals.
The team disclosed parts of controversial documents written by officials at the National Court Administration (NCA) under the top court. One of them recommended the judiciary should cooperate with the presidential office to help then President Park Geun-hye conduct state affairs smoothly.
The document, titled "A strategy for effective negotiations with the Blue House," suggested that the top court fine-tune how to rule on politically-sensitive cases with the presidential office.
It is unclear whether such a fine-tuning process had actually taken place. However, allegations have it that the top court had attempted to make a ruling to please the presidential office.
The sensitive cases included trials on the progressive Korea Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU), fired female attendants of the bullet train KTX, and pro-democracy activists jailed for opposing the dictatorship of Park Chung-hee in the 1970s.
The probe, the third of its kind, was aimed at shedding light on allegations that the NCA had blacklisted judges who were against Yang's policies. But it failed to find any evidence showing the existence of the blacklist.
The investigation team said the NCA classified judges according to their political and ideological inclinations. The NCA was also found to have secretly monitored liberal judges who were critical of the court administration.
The findings illustrate that the NCA under Yang's leadership severely undermined the key element of the judiciary: independence and neutrality from political power. In other words, the judiciary violated the constitutional principle of the separation of the three powers: the legislative, judiciary and executive branches.
It is hard to understand that such a violation took place in a functioning democracy such as Korea. It is reminiscent of the authoritarian rule of former Presidents Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan who controlled the judiciary ― directly and indirectly ― in the 1970s and 80s.
Under the dictatorship, many judges were forced to serve as the handmaiden of power. They were mobilized to make unjust rulings based on trumped-up charges in favor of political power which brutally cracked down on dissidents, students, union members and other pro-democracy activists.
During those days, judges could not advocate for their political neutrality and independence. Police tortured innocent people into confessing to crimes they did not commit. Prosecutors indicted those falsely accused, and then judges handed guilty verdicts to them.
Pundits may argue that police officers, prosecutors and judges could not help but collaborate with the dictatorship during those dark days. Yet, they cannot explain why judges have continued to disregard political neutrality and independence since the country ushered in democracy in the late 1980s.
Some of them have done that for personal gains. Others for political ambitions. Whatever the reasons, they have no conscience at all. They have no courage to stand up for constitutional values. That's why the judiciary has lost public confidence and undermined the rule of law.
Now the question is how to tackle the problem. The answer is to reform the judiciary. The long-overdue reform should focus on turning the judiciary into the guardian of justice in a true sense.
The first thing the judiciary should do is to dig deeper into the power abuse case. The internal probe is insufficient. The judiciary cannot solve its own problems. Worse, judges are divided over the issue: Young reform-minded judges call for a probe by the prosecution, while senior judges are against it.
This put Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su on the ropes. But he barely managed to accept the call for a criminal probe. So the prosecution has now begun to look into the case. It should bring those responsible for power abuse to justice. This should be a starting point for judicial reform.
Park Yoon-bae (byb@koreatimes.co.kr) is the chief editorial writer of The Korea Times
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