Some 170 judges joined hands Friday to press the Supreme Court to launch a study into whether the free trade agreement with the U.S. is skewed in favor of Americans.

The rare move came amid mushrooming public discontent over parliamentary approval last week of the trade pact. The deal, first signed in 2007 under the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration, drew strong protests from opposition parties, labor and farmers unions.

Several points in the agreement drew heated debates, including a so-called investor-state dispute settlement clause which opponents argue will deprive the judicial branch of full sovereignty over legal cases covered by the trade pact.

More than 100 judges came out in support of a proposal to form a Supreme Court-led task force to look into the controversy. By late Friday, the number grew to about 170.

The plan was first proposed in an e-mail posting by Kim Ha-neul, a mid-ranking judge in the Incheon District Court.

"I will write up a petition after 5:00 p.m. today with the list of judges who agreed on my proposal," Kim said in another posting.

He said he will figure out how to convey the proposal to the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

However, the possibility that such a task-force team will actually be launched is questionable as the judiciary remains highly wary about judges' expression of political opinions on government policies or public issues.

The proposal came as Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae called a meeting of 31 judges heading various levels of courts in the country in a bid to discuss the judiciary's stance toward controversies over the FTA.

"The public wants us judges to be upright and impartial," Chief Justice Yang said as he started the meeting.

His comments are widely interpreted as a call for judges to stay neutral away from public controversies.

The heads of courts also later expressed concerns over judges' expression of opinions in public, noting that the move could undermine public confidence in the courts.



(Yonhap News)