日本의 韓國司法權奪取始末

Seizure of Korea’s Judicial Power by the Japanese

After forcing open the way to Korean occupation by means of a demonstration of her military power in 1876, Japan brazenly began strengthening her aggression policies in succession. The goal was to rob the Korean royal government of its sovereignty as a whole, and the adopted tactics were to seize each phase of it separately but simultaneously. Japan’s interest in Korean government’s judicial power was revealed for the first time in the so-called Internal Administration Reform Plan(內政改革案)that she forced on the Koreans. In compliance with this reformation plan the Korean government had to proclaim a separation of administration and the judicature, whereupon in March, 1895 it enacted and proclaimed a Court Organization Law, which was in principle fashioned on the model of the Japanese judicial system but provided for five kinds of court structures, two levels of courts, and for the qualifications for judicial officers, in consideration of the particular situations of Korea in those days. Later in May, 1905 an institute was established to train judicial officers with an objective to secure a satisfactory execution of judicial administration. But as the intention of the Japanese was more to rob than see improvements in Korea, they planted Japanese assistants in each court in 1906 to let them interfere in Korean judicial administration, after they had taken over the Korean government’s diplomatic administration and begun their resident governor’s supervisory control of the Korean government in 1905. In July, 1907, Japan demanded the Korean government anew for separation of administration and the judicature, compelling it to enact and proclaim a new court organization law, which the Japanese had copied from their own judicial system. They placed Japanese in the highest positions to control the judiciary of Korea. Then they stripped the Korean government of the entire right to judicial administration and control of prisons in July, 1909 under the pretext that they would assume the responsibility for working out a desired improvement on the system in a set period of time. This way they turned the law courts in Korea into Japanese courts. As regards the police administration, too, the Japanese had continued their interference since October, 1907 until they took the control over it in June, 1910 also under a pretext that they would reform it within a term.