CLDG MT 24 - Week 6: Reason-giving by Jury: The Korean Context

Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights ensures everyone's right to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law in the determination of any criminal charge against them. One longstanding jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights asserts that this provision guarantees a right to a reasoned judgment. However, in many European countries where jury trials are prevalent, neither the judge nor the jury is required to provide reasons for their verdicts. This has led some commentators to argue that these practices contradict the jurisprudence of the ECHR.

While the Grand Chamber of the ECHR rejected the notion that the lack of reason-giving itself violates Article 6(1), it emphasized the need for sufficient safeguards to balance the absence of reason-giving. Such safeguards are crucial for enabling defendants to understand the basis of their conviction and for preventing the risk of arbitrary judgments.

Treating the right to a reasoned judgment as a fundamental human right aligns with the basic principle of the rule of law, which aims to protect individuals from arbitrary governmental powers. Therefore, the implications of the ECHR's jurisprudence are also relevant in the context of Korean criminal procedure. Since the adoption of lay participation trials in Korea in 2008, new challenges regarding reason-giving for judgments have emerged. While the jury's verdict is advisory rather than binding, judges increasingly refrain from providing their own reasoning, merely stating the result of the jury's verdict without further explanation when they adopt the jury’s verdict as their own judgment. 

Some judges justify this trend by arguing that without sufficient knowledge of the jurors' reasoning, they cannot substantiate the verdict. However, I contend that the participation of people in criminal trials should not deprive defendants of their fundamental right to a reasoned judgment. The democratic legitimacy of the criminal trial is enhanced by reason-giving, which transparently demonstrates how the common sense of people is reflected in the court's final judgment.

In this light, it is unjustifiable to omit essential reasons for judgments in citizen participatory trials even where the judge agrees with the verdict of the jurors. Transparent and reasoned judgments not only uphold the principles of fairness and justice but also contribute to public confidence in the legal system. Therefore, efforts should be made to ensure that reason-giving remains a fundamental aspect of criminal trials, even in systems with lay participation.