The ruling Democratic Party of Korea is pushing for the impeachment of Lim Seong-geun, a senior judge on the Busan High Court.

No judge has been impeached in Korea. Two motions of impeachment against Supreme Court justices were proposed in 1985 and 2009, but they were voted down or scrapped at the National Assembly.

The impeachment motion against Lim is likely to pass the parliament, considering that its leadership allowed its lawmakers to move to impeach the judge and that it has 174 seats in the 299-member legislature. For the motion to be approved, more than half (151 seats) of all lawmakers should consent to it. Then, if six of nine Constitutional Court justices approve the motion, the judge will be dismissed.

If a judge makes a grave error, he or she can be impeached, but in view of the first-trial decision and the background of the party’s push for impeachment, it is questionable if Lim’s error is grave enough to be impeached.

Lim was indicted in March 2019 for exerting his influence in 2016 on a libel suit filed by the government against a Japanese journalist who questioned then-President Park Geun-hye’s whereabouts during the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster. Lim is suspected of pressuring a lower judge to state in the sentencing that a column by Tatsuya Kato of Japan’s Sankei Shimbun was groundless. Kato was found not guilty. Lim was acquitted in the first trial.

The first-trial court’s ruling mentions unconstitutional behavior but ruled it was just a suggestion or advice and there was no infringement on the jurisdiction of the judge who tried the libel suit. Lim was acquitted of the abuse of authority. Nevertheless, the Democratic Party is taking steps to impeach him, citing the court’s mention of the unconstitutional behavior. But its argument for his breach of the Constitution is tenuous.

Besides, Lim is scheduled to retire in February. Even if the legislature passes the motion, his term is likely to end by the time the Constitutional Court begins to hear the motion. Then the impeachment may become meaningless.

The first-trial sentencing against Lim came in February last year. The party has been sitting idle in the meantime. It is not hard to guess its intention of pushing belatedly for the impeachment, considering the recent court rulings.

South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Kim Kyoung-soo, a close confidant of President Moon Jae-in, was sentenced in December last year to two years in prison for conspiring to manipulate online opinions in favor of Moon ahead of the 2017 presidential election.

Moon approved the Justice Ministry’s disciplinary suspension of duties for Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, but the court issued an injunction temporarily reversing the president’s approval.

Chung Kyung-shim, the wife of former Justice Minister Cho Kuk who was also a close aide to Moon, was sentenced to four years in jail for involvement in fabricating her daughter’s college admission documents.

Rep. Choe Kang-wook, the chief of the minor opposition Open Democratic Party that aligns with the ruling party, was found guilty of forging a certificate of internship for Cho’s son.

As the court issued fair rulings that perplexed the party, some of its lawmakers began to talk about impeachment, with ardent Moon fans calling for the punishment of related judges.

The first trial of Cho is still underway. Ulsan Mayor Song Cheol-ho was indicted in a case of Cheong Wa Dae officials intervening in the Ulsan mayoral election, though the court has not held a hearing on the case for about a year. Government officials were indicted for manipulating data on the Wolsong-1 nuclear reactor and hampering the audit of the reactor shutdown.

The party’s push for impeachment against this backdrop is enough to cause suspicions that it is trying to tame judges. It tries to give an effective warning to “rule carefully.”

The first-trial court acquitted Lim, though it said there is room for regarding his intervention as justification for disciplinary action. It is against the principle of legality to impeach a judge who was acquitted in the first trial and stands an ongoing appeals trial. It is a step to take control of judicial justice.