One seoul resident files 37,000 lawsuits for 5 years; His cases account for half of cases that is under review by supreme court now

Translation :

It has been reported that half of the civil lawsuits currently under review by the Supreme Court are filed by a single individual, Mr. Jeong, a man in his 50s residing in Seoul.

According to data submitted to the National Assembly's Legal Affairs and Judiciary Committee by Representative Song Seok-jun of the People Power Party, as of June 30, it has been revealed that half of the civil lawsuits currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court are filed by a single individual, Mr. Jeong, a man in his 50s residing in Seoul.

The Supreme Court is currently handling 7,283 civil cases, of which Mr. Jeong has filed 3,830 (52%). Narrowing the scope to unresolved cases from the past two years, 3,829 out of 4,154 civil cases (92%) are attributed to him.

Since 2016, Mr. Jeong has been indiscriminately filing lawsuits against judges, court officials, insurance companies, and others. It is reported that he often fails to pay the required filing and delivery fees and, when his lawsuits are dismissed, he appeals, and requests retrials at the Supreme Court in bulk.

From 2019 until June of this year, Mr. Jeong has filed a total of 37,425 lawsuits with the Supreme Court, 15,937 with the Seoul High Court, and 14,328 with the Seoul Central District Court.

This is led to concerns about administrative waste and distortion of court statistics. According to the Supreme Court, the average processing time for civil cases in the first half of this year is 13.9 months, which shows a significant increase compared to 8 months in 2021, 11.7 months in 2022, and 7.9 months last year.

However, when excluding the cases filed by Mr. Jeong, the average processing time in the first half of this year decreases to 4.2 months. This is an improvement compared to 4.7 months in 2021, 4.9 months in 2022, and 4.4 months last year.

Since October of last year, amendments to the Civil Procedure Act allow for fines of up to 5 million won to be imposed on those who abuse their legal rights, or for the acceptance of their cases to be withheld. Nevertheless, it is said that there are still limitations to these measures.