Korea's Three-Tier Courts and the Supreme Court — The Three Steps a Case Climbs, and Sometimes Comes Back Down

The Headline "Supreme Court Sends the Case Back"

"Appellate court overturns first-instance ruling." "Supreme Court breaks appellate ruling and sends the case back." You have likely seen headlines like these in the news at least once. We also vaguely know that a single case can go through the courts three times. However, what the second and third trials do differently, and what it means for the Supreme Court to "send back" a case, remains blurry.

This article is about the trial structure of South Korean courts. The three-tier trial system is a judicial structure designed so that a single case can have its judgment evaluated up to three times. In South Korea, this generally proceeds from the district court to the high court to the Supreme Court (KCI ART002021470). This article explains how that structure works in general terms and does not cover what needs to be done in any specific case.

The explanation uses one fictitious case. A person bought a very expensive car at a used car dealership. A few months later, they heard at a repair shop that this car appeared to have been submerged in water in the past. The buyer said they would return the car and asked for their money back, and the dealership refused. The buyer filed a lawsuit against the dealership.

There are two questions in this case. One is "what actually happened?" This is whether the car was truly submerged in water and whether the dealership knew that fact and sold it. The other is "what happens when the law is applied to that event?" For instance, whether the dealership does not have to return the money if they did not know. This article does not determine which legal provision fits this case. This used car case is an example created to show how trials move up and down.

The three trials divide these two questions—namely, facts and law—among themselves differently.

Climbing the Court Stairs One Step at a Time

The first-instance court concluded that the car had been submerged in water and that the shop also knew about it. Therefore, it ruled that the money should be returned. The shop cannot accept this ruling.

A judicial tier is each individual step of the court sequentially evaluating a single case. It is like a single step on a staircase. If you are dissatisfied with the ruling of the step below, you go up one step. The first step is the first instance, the next step is the second instance, and the last step is the third instance.

An appeal (항소) is a request for a higher court to re-evaluate the case because you are dissatisfied with the first-instance ruling. The Civil Procedure Act stipulates that an appeal can be filed against the judgment rendered by the first-instance court upon concluding a case (Civil Procedure Act Article 390 Paragraph 1). If the shop appeals, the case goes up to the second instance.

If you are dissatisfied with the second-instance ruling as well, you go up one more step. An appeal to the highest court (상고) is a request for the Supreme Court to make a determination because you are dissatisfied with the second-instance ruling. In civil cases, an appeal can be filed against judgments rendered by the High Court and judgments rendered by a panel of judges of the District Court as a second instance (Civil Procedure Act Article 422 Paragraph 1). In criminal cases too, if you are dissatisfied with a second-instance ruling, you can appeal to the Supreme Court (Criminal Procedure Act Article 371).

The top of the staircase is the Supreme Court. The Constitution stipulates that the court system shall be organized with the Supreme Court as the highest court and courts at each level (Constitution Article 101 Paragraph 2), and the Court Organization Act stipulates that the Supreme Court shall try appeal cases against judgments such as those of High Courts as the final instance, that is, the last tier of trial (Court Organization Act Article 14). There are no more steps to climb above the Supreme Court.

The court handling the second instance varies depending on who handled the first instance. The first instance may be handled by a single judge, or by a collegiate panel of three judges (Court Organization Act Article 7 Paragraph 4, Paragraph 5). Generally, the second instance for a first instance handled by a collegiate panel is handled by a High Court, while the second instance for a first instance handled by a single judge is handled by a collegiate panel at the main district court (Court Organization Act Article 28, Article 32 Paragraph 2, Criminal Procedure Act Article 357). Among civil cases handled by a single judge, some cases determined by Supreme Court rules go to the High Court (Court Organization Act Article 28). The used car in this article is a very expensive car, so it is not a small-claims case, and we assume that the first instance was handled by a district court collegiate panel so that the second instance is the High Court. If it had been a small-claims case, the path to the Supreme Court would become much narrower.

When viewed by the court one step higher, the ruling of the court directly below has a name. The prior-instance judgment (원심) is the judgment delivered in the court directly below, which the higher court is reviewing again. To the second instance, the prior-instance judgment is the first-instance ruling, and to the Supreme Court, the prior-instance judgment is the second-instance ruling. The Criminal Procedure Act also uses the exact term "prior-instance judgment" in the provisions listing the grounds for appeal and the grounds for appeal to the Supreme Court (Criminal Procedure Act Article 361-5, Article 383).

A single case goes up to the second instance through an appeal and to the Supreme Court through an appeal to the highest court, climbing as many as three steps.

The Second Instance Looks at the Facts Again from Scratch

The shop brought new materials to the second instance. These are the maintenance records received when bringing in the car. The second-instance court re-examined these records and the witness's words. And it judged that while the car had been submerged in water, it was difficult to see that the shop knew that fact. The factual judgment changed from the first instance.

The second instance can do this because of the structure of a civil appeal trial. South Korean civil procedure law is structured so that new claims and evidence not submitted in the first instance can, in principle, be submitted in the appeal trial (DOI: 10.33982/clr.2026.8.31.3.419). In criminal cases as well, cases where facts were incorrectly recognized and affected the judgment and cases where the sentence is unfair are listed as grounds for appeal (Criminal Procedure Act, Article 361-5, Items 14 and 15).

The second instance also re-examines the legal judgment. On top of the fact that the shop did not know, the second instance read the law to mean that 「if they did not know, they do not have to return the money」. This time, the person who bought it lost.

There is a name attached to this kind of box. A court of fact is a court level that both sorts out what happened through evidence and applies the law to it. The first and second instances are courts of fact. The appeal trial is a place where both factual judgments and legal judgments can be reviewed again (KCI ART001821965), and criminal appeal trials also have the character of courts of fact like the first instance (DOI: 10.36727/jjlpr.30.1.202403.011).

Because the second instance can re-examine the first instance with new evidence, the factual judgment sometimes changes.

The Supreme Court Looks at the Law

Now the living person wants to appeal to the Supreme Court. The living person wants to argue again in the Supreme Court that "the shop knew." But in a civil case, the path to re-arguing factual judgments is blocked. The Civil Procedure Act provides that an appeal to the Supreme Court may be filed only on the ground of a violation of the Constitution, acts, decrees, or regulations that affected the judgment (Article 423 of the Civil Procedure Act).

A ground for appeal to the Supreme Court is a reason established by law that can be put forward to the Supreme Court to argue that the lower court judgment was wrong. The grounds for appeal in a civil case are narrowed down to a single thing: that the law was violated. Therefore, what the living person can argue in the Supreme Court is along the lines of: "The second instance court misread the law. It should have read that even if the shop did not know, it must return the money."

A court of law review is an appellate instance that mainly examines whether the lower court properly read and applied the law. The Supreme Court corresponds to this. The Supreme Court's final appeal review is a court of law review that examines the lower court's judgment from behind (DOI: 10.36727/jjlpr.30.1.202403.011).

In a criminal case, there is one place where an appeal can be filed on a question of fact. In addition to reasons such as a violation of statutes, the grounds for appeal in a criminal case provide for one more. In cases where the death penalty, life imprisonment, or imprisonment or imprisonment without prison labor for 10 years or more has been sentenced, an appeal may also be filed when there is a significant reason acknowledged that a serious misapprehension of facts affected the judgment or that the sentence is extremely unfair (Article 383 of the Criminal Procedure Act). In cases involving heavy penalties, the Supreme Court can also touch upon questions of fact.

Looking only at the statutory provisions, a civil appeal is narrowed down to a single violation of law. However, the boundary between fact and law is not always neat. For example, the argument that the lower court evaluated evidence greatly contrary to common sense and experience is treated both as a dispute over a factual judgment and as a question of law of having violated the rules for evaluating evidence. Therefore, views are divided on how far the Supreme Court should look into the facts.

One side starts from the purpose of an appeal to the Supreme Court. This is the view that if even protecting the parties is recognized as a purpose of the appeal, problems such as a court seemingly misrecognizing the facts can also be considered grounds for appeal (KCI ART000984923). The other side looks at the actual reality. There are papers pointing out that the South Korean Supreme Court has handled cases virtually without limitation, even including the work of a court of first/second instance determining what happened, and viewing this as one of the causes for supreme court appeal cases piling up (DOI: 10.35215/jcj.2015.2.1.010). The question of how well the principle that the Supreme Court looks at the law is actually kept is also connected to the problem of cases flooding the Supreme Court.

The role undertaken by the Supreme Court is twofold. The purposes of an appeal are two: to protect the parties from errors of lower courts and to unify legal interpretation (KCI ART001821965, KCI ART000984923). The Supreme Court is both the final seat responsible for remedying the rights of the citizenry and the seat that ensures the law applied in courts of various levels is unified (KCI ART002046991).

That weight is also revealed in the Court Organization Act. Cases in the Supreme Court can be tried by a division consisting of 3 or more Supreme Court Justices, but when it is necessary to change the legal interpretation previously issued by the Supreme Court, the case cannot be concluded in a division and must be tried by a full bench composed of two-thirds or more of all Supreme Court Justices (Article 7, Paragraph 1 of the Court Organization Act).

Rather than what happened, the Supreme Court mainly looks at whether the lower court properly read the law.

Breaking and Sending It Down One Step

The Supreme Court saw the living person's claim as correct. It means the second-instance court misread the law. In this example, since the second-instance court saw that "if you did not know, you do not have to return it" and stopped there, the remaining questions, such as how much money should be returned, are assumed not to have been examined yet. Therefore, instead of directly ruling that "the shop must return the money," the Supreme Court breaks the second-instance judgment and sends the case back to the second-instance court.

A remand (파기환송) is when the Supreme Court breaks a lower-court judgment and sends the case back to the lower court. That is the term that frequently appears in news headlines. The Civil Procedure Act stipulates that if the Supreme Court acknowledges that there is a legitimate reason for final appeal, it must break the lower-court judgment and remand the case to the lower court or transfer it to another court of equivalent standing (Article 436, Paragraph 1 of the Civil Procedure Act). The Criminal Procedure Act also has a provision to the same effect (Article 397 of the Criminal Procedure Act). In terms of stairs, the case goes down one step.

What the High Court that receives it back must do is also written in the law. The court that receives it back must go through pleadings again and try the case, and it must follow the factual and legal judgments that the Supreme Court made as the grounds for the break (Article 436, Paragraph 2 of the Civil Procedure Act). Judges who participated in the lower-court judgment cannot take part in this trial (Article 436, Paragraph 3 of the Civil Procedure Act). The Court Organization Act also stipulates that judgments in trials by higher courts are binding on lower courts regarding the case in question, meaning they are tied to follow them (Article 8 of the Court Organization Act).

Moving to the used car case, it is like this. The High Court forms a trial division with different judges and opens pleadings again. Then, it issues a new judgment following the interpretation of the law presented by the Supreme Court.

Therefore, the case continues even after a remand. When the Supreme Court issues a remand judgment, the case in question is still unresolved, and the lawsuit does not reach finality, where it hardens so that it can no longer be contested. When breaking a lower-court judgment, the Supreme Court makes remand the principle rather than ruling directly (KCI ART002211547). There are also separate provisions in civil and criminal law for the Supreme Court to rule directly. In civil cases, if the judgment is broken on the grounds that the law was misapplied to facts finalized by the second instance, and those facts alone are sufficient to try the case, the Supreme Court must rule directly (Article 437, Paragraph 1 of the Civil Procedure Act). The used car example is assumed to have not yet examined the amount to be returned, so it does not fall under this case. In criminal cases, if it is recognized that the trial record and the evidence investigated by the second-instance court and first-instance court are sufficient to render a judgment, the Supreme Court may rule directly (Article 396, Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Procedure Act).

A remand is the Supreme Court sending the case down one step while saying, "Retry the case with this legal interpretation," and victory or defeat is newly decided by the court that receives it back.

Cases That Do Not Climb All Three Tiers

According to the rulings of the Constitutional Court conveyed in a paper, because the three-tier trial system is not explicitly prescribed in the Constitution, stopping at the second tier is not unconstitutional. The constitutional provision designating the Supreme Court as the highest court should also not be understood to mean that every case can appeal to the Supreme Court (KCI ART002021470). Proceeding from the premise that the right to receive a trial does not include the right to receive a trial by the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court has consistently judged systems that restrict appeals to be constitutional (DOI: 10.35215/jcj.2015.2.1.010).

There are also places where the Constitution itself writes down exceptions that end at a single tier. Military trials under martial law may be concluded with a single trial—that is, just one trial—limited to cases prescribed by law among those picked by the Constitution, such as crimes by soldiers and military personnel, and this cannot be done in cases where the death penalty is sentenced (Article 110, Paragraph 4 of the Constitution).

The Trial of Minor Civil Cases Act, which handles civil cases involving small amounts of money, narrows the door to appeals. Regarding the second-instance judgment in a minor case, an appeal to the Supreme Court can be made only when the judgment regarding whether a law, order, regulation, or disposition violates the Constitution, whether an order, regulation, or disposition violates the law, is unjust, or when the judgment is contrary to the precedents of the Supreme Court (Article 3 of the Trial of Minor Civil Cases Act). Conversely, there is also a way to skip a tier. If both parties agree not to appeal to the appellate court while leaving open the right to appeal to the Supreme Court after the first-instance judgment, an appeal can be made directly against the first-instance judgment (Article 390, Paragraph 1, and Article 422, Paragraph 2 of the Civil Procedure Act).

Cases flock to the doors of the Supreme Court. As of 2014, appeals received by the Supreme Court numbered 37,652. The fixed number of Supreme Court justices was 14, including the Chief Justice, and among them, the justices who actually participated in trials numbered 13 (DOI: 10.22999/hraj..460.201609.002, KCI ART001952759). With this small number of personnel, it is difficult to look deeply into that many cases one by one.

Therefore, there is a device that screens cases at the door. Dismissal without examination is a system where, if the appellant's argument does not contain grounds separately picked out by the law, the Supreme Court does not examine it further and dismisses the appeal with a judgment. Those grounds include cases where the lower court judgment violates the Constitution or improperly interprets the Constitution, interprets it contrary to Supreme Court precedents, cases where there is no precedent or a need to change a precedent, and other serious violations of laws and decrees (Article 4, Paragraph 1 of the Act on Special Cases Concerning Procedure for Appeal). Most of these are weighty issues concerning how to read the law.

This sieve is one step narrower than general grounds for appeal. Even if the grounds for appeal specified by the Civil Procedure Act are presented, if the argument does not contain these grounds, it is dismissed. Reasons do not need to be written in this judgment (Article 5, Paragraph 1 of the Act on Special Cases Concerning Procedure for Appeal). This system applies to appeal cases in civil, family, and administrative lawsuits (Article 2 of the Act on Special Cases Concerning Procedure for Appeal) and has been in effect since 1994 (KCI ART002865709).

Controversy is concentrated on the part where reasons are not written. This is because the person who appealed may not receive an answer stating why they lost. Constitutional disputes have continued over this part, and while the Constitutional Court has basically viewed it as constitutional, unconstitutional opinions have also emerged. The 2013 paper that organizes this situation itself views this system as unconstitutional (DOI: 10.31779/plj.14.2.201305.012).

What to do about the flocking cases—that is, how to change the final appeal trial—has long been a subject of controversy. Solutions are largely divided into three branches: the path of filtering out cases entering the Supreme Court, the path of separately establishing a court next to the Supreme Court that handles only final appeals, and the path of increasing the number of Supreme Court justices.

The path of filtering is a path already walked. The appeal permission system was a system where only cases permitted by the Supreme Court were dealt with in the final appeal trial. The appeal permission system was implemented from 1981 to 1990 and then abolished, and the dismissal without examination system was legislated in 1994 (KCI ART001821965, DOI: 10.22825/juris.2021.1.55.016).

The path of establishing a separate court came out as a bill. In December 2014, a bill led in preparation by the Supreme Court to establish an appeal court separate from the Supreme Court was proposed (DOI: 10.35215/jcj.2015.2.1.010). This bill participated in by 168 members of the National Assembly was discarded upon the expiration of their term (DOI: 10.16960/jhlr.17.4.201612.675).

The path of increasing numbers was put forward by the Korean Bar Association around that time. The association argued that the appeal court harms the Supreme Court's status as the highest court—meaning the highest court—and restricts the right to receive a trial, and thus the number of Supreme Court justices should be substantially increased. The 2016 paper introducing this position itself was on the side that an appeal court is necessary (DOI: 10.22999/hraj..455.201602.003). There are also voices supporting the filtering path once again. A 2014 paper viewed that restricting appeals to regulate the number of cases coming to the Supreme Court, as in various countries, is the most rational (DOI: 10.17007/klaj.2014.63.9.001).

A 2024 paper deals with the legislative opinion issued by the Supreme Court. It was a proposal to abolish dismissal without examination, introduce an appeal examination system, and increase Supreme Court justices by 4 over 6 years. This paper raises questions about whether that proposal will actually reduce the burden on the Supreme Court, and proposes revising dismissal without examination, increasing Supreme Court justices, and also placing judges who are not Supreme Court justices inside the Supreme Court (KCI ART003136354). The current Court Organization Act has increased the fixed number of Supreme Court justices to 26, including the Chief Justice (Article 4, Paragraph 2 of the Court Organization Act).

The third tier is not open to all cases, and how wide to leave the door open to the Supreme Court has long been a subject of controversy.

When You Read a News Headline

Let us imagine a headline like this has appeared. "Supreme Court Quashes and Remands Used Car Refund Lawsuit... 'Lower Court Misinterpreted the Law'". This headline is also made up.

The first question is "Who won?". We still cannot tell from the headline alone. A remanded case is not yet resolved, and the lawsuit has not reached finality (KCI ART002211547). The new judgment will be rendered again by the appellate court.

The second question is "What was wrong?". "Misinterpretation of the law" is the answer. Because the ground for appealing to the supreme court in a civil case is that the law was violated, the reason the Supreme Court overturns a lower court in a civil case also lies in the law (Civil Procedure Act Article 423).

The third question is "What happens next?". The court that received the case back holds a new hearing through judges who were not involved in the lower court judgment, and must follow the reasoning that the Supreme Court used as the ground for quashing (Civil Procedure Act Article 436 Paragraph 2, Paragraph 3).

If the headline is "Supreme Court Dismisses Appeal", the way to read it changes. Since this means the Supreme Court did not accept the appeal, the second-instance judgment remains as it is. Because the Supreme Court is the final instance, there are no more squares to move up (Court Organization Act Article 14). If it is written as "Dismissal for Lack of Examination", it means the Supreme Court dismissed the case without further examination and the reasons may not be written (Act on Special Cases Concerning Procedure for Trial of Appeal Article 4 Paragraph 1, Article 5 Paragraph 1).

"Quashing and remanding" means to try the case again so the lawsuit continues, and "dismissing the appeal" means the second-instance judgment remains as it is.

Remaining Questions, and Where to Look Next

The Supreme Court handles both correcting the wrongs of individual cases and unifying the interpretation of laws nationwide. How to accomplish these two tasks together with a limited number of Supreme Court justices is a question upon which a consensus has not yet been formed, according to papers from 2016 and 2021 (DOI: 10.22999/hraj..460.201609.002, DOI: 10.22825/juris.2021.1.55.016). How the 26 Supreme Court justices, whose cap was expanded by the current law, will divide these two tasks cannot yet be known based on this article.

Other articles in the same series "Trials from Scratch" cover other aspects of this structure. "How Is a Civil Case Different from a Criminal One? — One Incident, Two Courtrooms" explains how civil trials, such as a used car dispute, and criminal trials, which handle crimes, diverge. "The Presumption of Innocence — The Threshold the Prosecutor Must Cross" covers the criteria by which criminal trials recognize guilt. "How to Read a Court Judgment — A One-Line Answer and Its Reasons" actually opens up a Supreme Court judgment. How the court evaluates scientific evidence can be found in the "The Court's Yardstick — How Science and Tradition Are Tested" series.

Source Papers

• Constitution of the Republic of Korea, Article 101 — Current (enforced 1988.2.25) — Judicial power belongs to courts, which are organized into the Supreme Court as the highest court and courts at each level.
• Constitution of the Republic of Korea, Article 110 — Current (enforced 1988.2.25) — Final appeals of military courts go to the Supreme Court, and military trials under extraordinary martial law may be a single instance for certain crimes (excluding death sentences).
• Court Organization Act, Article 4 (Supreme Court Justices) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — The number of Supreme Court Justices is 26 including the Chief Justice.
• Court Organization Act, Article 7 (Exercise of Adjudication Power) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — Supreme Court adjudication power requires a full bench of at least two-thirds of all Supreme Court Justices, with exceptions for panel trials (such as changing previous interpretations), single judges, and collegiate panels.
• Court Organization Act, Article 8 (Binding Force of Higher Court Rulings) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — A higher court's decision binds lower courts regarding that specific case.
• Court Organization Act, Article 14 (Adjudication Power) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — The Supreme Court adjudicates final appeal cases as the court of final instance.
• Court Organization Act, Article 28 (Adjudication Power) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — The scope of appellate cases adjudicated by high courts.
• Court Organization Act, Article 32 (Adjudication Power of Collegiate Panels) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — The second-instance adjudication power of collegiate panels at main district courts.
• Civil Procedure Act, Article 390 (Subject of Appeal) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — Appeals against first-instance final judgments, and agreements not to appeal while reserving the right to file a final appeal.
• Civil Procedure Act, Article 422 (Subject of Final Appeal) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — Final appeals against second-instance judgments of high courts and district court collegiate panels, and final appeals against first-instance judgments when there is an agreement not to appeal.
• Civil Procedure Act, Article 423 (Grounds for Final Appeal) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — Final appeals are permitted only when citing violations of the Constitution, laws, orders, or regulations that affected the judgment.
• Civil Procedure Act, Article 436 (Remand, Transfer) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — Remand and transfer, re-argument and binding force at the court receiving the remand, and exclusion of the original-instance judge.
• Civil Procedure Act, Article 437 (Self-Adjudication upon Annulment) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — If a judgment is annulled due to misapplication of laws and regulations to established facts and those facts are sufficient for a trial, the court of final appeal must render a final judgment.
• Act on Special Cases Concerning Procedure for Final Appeal, Article 2 (Scope of Application) — Current (enforced 2009.11.2) — Applied to final appeal cases in civil, domestic, and administrative litigation.
• Act on Special Cases Concerning Procedure for Final Appeal, Article 4 (Dismissal of Final Appeal without Review) — Current (enforced 2009.11.2) — If the grounds for final appeal do not include statutory reasons (such as constitutional violations, conflict with precedent, absence of precedent, or serious violations of laws and regulations), the final appeal is dismissed by judgment without a full review.
• Act on Special Cases Concerning Procedure for Final Appeal, Article 5 (Special Provisions on Judgments) — Current (enforced 2009.11.2) — Judgments under Article 4 may omit the statement of reasons.
• Criminal Procedure Act, Article 357 (Judgments Subject to Appeal) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — Appeals against single-judge judgments go to the main district court collegiate panel, and appeals against collegiate panel judgments go to the high court.
• Criminal Procedure Act, Article 361-5 (Grounds for Appeal) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — Grounds for appeal include violations of laws and regulations, misapprehension of facts, and unfair sentencing.
• Criminal Procedure Act, Article 371 (Judgments Subject to Final Appeal) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — Dissatisfaction with a second-instance judgment leads to a final appeal to the Supreme Court.
• Criminal Procedure Act, Article 383 (Grounds for Final Appeal) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — Violations of laws and regulations, as well as serious misapprehensions of facts or severely unfair sentencing in cases sentenced to death, life imprisonment, or imprisonment for 10 years or more.
• Criminal Procedure Act, Article 396 (Self-Adjudication upon Annulment) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — If records and evidence are sufficient, the court of final appeal renders a judgment directly.
• Criminal Procedure Act, Article 397 (Remand or Transfer) — Current (enforced 2026.10.2) — When annulling an original-instance judgment, the case is remanded to the original court or transferred to an equivalent court.
• Small Claims Trial Act, Article 3 (Final Appeals and Re-Appeals) — Current (enforced 2023.3.28) — Final appeals against second-instance judgments in small claims cases are permitted only when decisions on constitutional or legal violations are unjust or conflict with precedents.
• "A Brief Consideration on the 'Right to Receive a Trial' under Article 27, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution and the System of Judicial Instances" (2015) — KCI ART002021470 — The three-instance system spanning district courts, high courts, and the Supreme Court; the Constitutional Court ruled that a three-instance system is not a constitutional right.
• "Procedural Tasks for Enhancing the First Instance Trial" (2026) — DOI: 10.33982/clr.2026.8.31.3.419 — The civil appellate trial is a retrial, and new attack and defense methods can in principle be submitted in the appellate trial.
• "Desirable Operation Methods for Criminal Appellate Trials" (2024) — DOI: 10.36727/jjlpr.30.1.202403.011 — Criminal appellate trials are fact-finding trials like the first instance, whereas the Supreme Court's final appeal trial is a review trial and a legal trial.
• "Improvement Measures for the Korean Civil Final Appeal System" (2013) — KCI ART001821965 — The two purposes of a final appeal, appellate trials examining both facts and law, and the experience of the final appeal permission system from 1981 to 1990.
• "A Brief Study on the Institutional Reform of Civil Final Appeals to Alleviate the Supreme Court's Workload" (2006) — KCI ART000984923 — The purposes of final appeals are interpretation harmonization and rights relief; if rights relief is recognized, violations of empirical rules, misapprehension of facts, and insufficient hearings can become grounds for final appeals.
• "A Study on the Role of the Supreme Court and Constitutional Issues in Improving Final Appeal Trials" (2015) — KCI ART002046991 — The Supreme Court is both the ultimate bastion of rights relief and a policy court securing legal uniformity.
• "An Opinion on Improving the Final Appeal System" (2015) — DOI: 10.35215/jcj.2015.2.1.010 — The final appeal court bill was proposed in 2014.12, the Constitutional Court consistently held restrictions on final appeals to be constitutional, and the author views the Supreme Court's unlimited jurisdiction (including fact-finding trials) as the cause of the final appeal surge.
• "The Supreme Court's Remand Judgment and the Subject of Constitutional Complaints" (2017) — KCI ART002211547 — The Supreme Court principle is to remand cases, and lawsuits following a remand are not finalized.
• "Restriction Systems on Final Appeals in Major Countries" (2016) — DOI: 10.22999/hraj..460.201609.002 — In 2014, there were 37,652 final appeals handled by 13 actual trial justices, with a lack of consensus on solutions.
• "A Critical Reflection on the 2014 Discussions on Establishing a Final Appeal Court and a Tentative Study on a New Supreme Court System" (2014) — KCI ART001952759 — The diagnosis that 14 Supreme Court justices cannot handle about 40,000 final appeals in 2014, arguing for a gradual increase in the number of justices.
• "Review of Unconstitutionality regarding the System of Omitting the Statement of Reasons in Final Appeal Dismissal Judgments without Review" (2013) — DOI: 10.31779/plj.14.2.201305.012 — Review without full examination and the omission of reasons; the Constitutional Court considers this basically constitutional while minority opinions view it as unconstitutional, and the author views it as unconstitutional.
• "Rational Improvement Directions for the Final Appeal System" (2022) — KCI ART002865709 — Dismissal of final appeals without review has been implemented exclusively for civil, domestic, and administrative cases since 1994.
• "The Organization of the Supreme Court and Changes in the Final Appeal System: From the Perspective of Historical Institutionalism" (2021) — DOI: 10.22825/juris.2021.1.55.016 — The final appeal permission system was abolished in 1990, the dismissal without review was legislated in 1994, and discussions failed to yield a definite alternative.
• "A Procedural Approach to the Discussion Process of Improvement Measures for Final Appeal Trials" (2016) — DOI: 10.16960/jhlr.17.4.201612.675 — The Supreme Court-led final appeal court bill was discarded upon the expiration of terms after 168 lawmakers joined.
• "Ways to Improve Korea's Final Appeal System" (2016) — DOI: 10.22999/hraj..455.201602.003 — The Korean Bar Association's opposition to the final appeal court and argument for increasing Supreme Court justices, with the author favoring the final appeal court.
• "Ways to Improve the Final Appeal System" (2014) — DOI: 10.17007/klaj.2014.63.9.001 — The argument that a final appeal restriction system regulating case numbers is rational.
• "A Critical Analysis of the Supreme Court's Legislative Opinions (Final Appeal Screening System and Supreme Court Justice Expansion Proposal) and Exploration of Effective Final Appeal System Improvements" (2024) — KCI ART003136354 — Legislative opinion proposing a final appeal screening system plus an increase of 4 Supreme Court justices over 6 years, with doubts regarding the workload reduction effect.