Ju Un-hwa

Ju Un-hwa (朱雲化, 1918 – 18 June 1996) was a jurist who served as a Justices of the Supreme Court of South Korea.¹

Life

Born in 1918 in Wonsan, South Hamgyong Province, into the Sinan Ju clan, Ju Un-hwa was the only son among three siblings. In 1941 he graduated from the law department of Chuo University in Japan, and in 1943 he passed the Japanese higher civil service examination in the judicial category. In 1944 he left the university without completing his degree and was appointed a judge. After liberation on 15 August 1945, he was appointed a prosecutor of the Cheongju District Public Prosecutors' Office.

While serving as a prosecutor of the Daegu High Public Prosecutors' Office, on 20 March 1953, at the closing hearing of the Syngman Rhee assassination plot case, he argued against the defense's claim that it was "a play by Kim Si-hyeon without intent to kill, or a piece of theater jointly staged by Kim Si-hyeon and the police," saying, "It cannot be considered common sense that this was a play," and he demanded sentences ranging from death to four years' imprisonment for the ten defendants.² On 6 April 1953, the Daegu High Court (presiding judge Kim Jong-gyu, associate judges Jeong Yeong-jo and Kwon O-gyu) sentenced Kim Si-hyeon and Yu Si-tae to death, Seo Sang-il and Baek Nam-hun to six months' imprisonment with a one-year suspended sentence, and acquitted six people, including Kim Seong-gyu.³

He later served as head of the Chungju branch of the Cheongju District Public Prosecutors' Office, deputy chief prosecutor of the Jeonju District Public Prosecutors' Office, a prosecutor of the Daegu High Public Prosecutors' Office, deputy chief prosecutor of the in 1962, chief prosecutor of the in 1963, and deputy chief prosecutor of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in 1964. In March 1964 he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. In July 1968, while serving as presiding judge in the , he ruled that "the lower court's application of the espionage and infiltration charges was a misapplication of the law, and that it had made factual findings without evidence and imposed heavy sentences, which constituted an error in sentencing," and he overturned the lower court's ruling and remanded the case. Immediately after the ruling, leaflets and posters in the form of "Punish the judges," "Find the judges who serve Kim Il Sung," "Punish the red gangs who collude with the North Korean puppet regime and wait for an opportunity," and "Isn't saying there is no material evidence and therefore acquittal just a pretext for protecting the ? Do not be deceived by the red wolves hiding behind the masks of judges," were scattered in Seoul in the name of the Patriotic Citizens' Association and similar groups, and registered mail was also sent to judges under the name of the "Patriotic Citizens' Association."