요코타 고로(橫田五郞) 원장 재임기 조선고등법원 판례조사회의 운영과 판례의 변화

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the trends and changes in judicial precedents set by the Joseon High Court, the supreme court of colonial Korea, during the 1920s and 1930s. It specifically focuses on the activities of the High Court’s Judicial Precedents Research Committee during the tenure of the second Chief Justice, Yokota Gorou (橫田五郞). Yokota assumed the office of Chief Justice in April 1923, following three years of service as the director of the Bureau of Legal Affairs of the colonial government-general from January 1920. He sought to reform court management and judicial affairs by utilizing the enhanced authority of the chief justice, granted through the revision of the Government-General Court Organization Ordinance in December 1922. In April 1923, under his leadership, the Committee was organized consisting of all member of the High Court to play a leading role in changing the court's judicial activities in a way that could meet the social and economic norms of real life. The Committee was modeled after the Judicial Precedents Examination Committee of the Supreme Court in mainland Japan. However, the Joseon High Court’s Committee outperformed its mainland counterpart. More precedent changes and new precedents were established during Yokota's tenure than at any other time. The Committee acted as an engine driving new changes within Yokota’s High Court. This article delves into the status and role of the High Court within the colonial legal and political framework through the resolutions passed by the Committee and subsequent precedents. This article examines the status and role of the High Court in the given legal and political conditions under the colonial ruling system through the resolutions passed by the Committee and the subsequent precedents of the High Court. They show how the Committee did not just review the existing precedents of the High Court but sometimes criticized the opinions of the Supreme Court in the center of the Japan Empire’s judicial network. establishing new precedents. Furthermore, it illustrates how colonial judicial authorities actively played a role in law creation by covering up the cloak decorated with the argument of the "discovery of customary law" in the process of adjusting and reforming the customary laws of Koreans in a direction close to the exemplary legal norms and institutions of the mainland of the Japan Empire.