President Lee Jae-myung speaks at the first anti-corruption policy council held at Cheong Wa Dae since the government’s launch on the 21st. Reporter Kwon Wook
President Lee Jae-myung said he trusts lawyers will work harder to ensure that every citizen can receive fair legal services without having to plead injustice or grievance, in a congratulatory address to the Korean Bar Association’s 34th “Lawyers’ Convention for the Rule of Law” on the 24th.
The message was delivered on Lee’s behalf by Han Chan-sik, senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, at the event held at a hotel in Jung-gu, central Seoul.
Lee expressed his respect and gratitude to lawyers working to protect citizens’ freedoms and rights and to speak for the disadvantaged in difficulty. As both the president of South Korea and a lawyer himself, he said he found the day’s theme — “guaranteeing citizens’ basic rights amid changes in the judicial system” — welcome and timely.
He described the present as a period of upheaval, in which artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technology are advancing rapidly and social structures are changing on many fronts. As a result, disputes and conflicts that are difficult to resolve through existing order and institutions alone are gradually increasing, he explained. At such times, he stressed, the law must fulfill its function and responsibility as a universal principle that both points the direction society should take and must be upheld without wavering.
Lee said the role of the Korean Bar Association, which has long led efforts to defend South Korea’s rule of law and citizens’ basic rights, is all the more weighty, and he called on the association to fulfill that responsibility.