Bang Sun-won

Bang Sun-won (方順元, Japanese name: 方山順元, January 2, 1914 – October 21, 2004¹) was a South Korean jurist who was active from the Japanese colonial period. His family seat was Onyang (溫陽), and his pen name was Onsan (溫山). He served as presiding judge of the Seoul District Court and then as a professor at the College of Law of Seoul National University, and he held office as a justice of the Supreme Court of South Korea. While still a junior judge, he could not afford to paper his home and covered the walls with newspaper instead, and when he had no rice, his wife went to a fellow judge's house to borrow some. During his tenure as a Supreme Court justice, when the Chief Justice divided the leftover budget among the Supreme Court judges as allowances, he returned his share on the grounds that it was an abuse of discretionary power.² For these reasons he was counted among the "Three Great Incorruptible Judges" and, as a model for the legal profession, received the Korean Legal Culture Award and the Order of National Merit (Mugunghwa Medal), among other honors.

Biography

Bang was a native of Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province³. He graduated from Sunrin Commercial High School and Gyeongseong Law School, and entered the legal profession while working as a court clerk and interpreter.

In 1940 he passed the higher civil service examination in the judicial category. After serving as a probationary judge at the Hamhung District Court, he was appointed a judge of the Mokpo Branch of the Gwangju District Court in 1943. In 1945 he served as head of the Mokpo Branch of the Gwangju District Court, and he continued to work as a judge under the U.S. Army Military Government.

In 1948, with the establishment of the First Republic, he took office as presiding judge of the Seoul District Court, and he later served as a professor at the College of Law of .