Trust in the court: 41%... Ministry of Public Prosecutions 24%, Central Investigation Agency 29%, National Police Agency 29% [Gallup Korea]

Amid discussions on the impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae in the political world, a public opinion poll was released on the 6th showing that 4 to 5 out of 10 citizens do not trust the courts.

According to a survey conducted by Gallup Korea on the 3rd to 5th among 1,001 people over the age of 18 across the country, 41% had trust in the court and 47% had distrust.

Compared to the survey in April last year, trust fell by 5 percentage points and distrust rose by 3 percentage points.

Supporters of the Democratic Party of Korea (52%) and the People Power Party (48%) both responded that they do not trust the court at around 50%. The distrust of the court among the supporters of the Homeland Innovation Party reached 83%.

Regarding trust in the Constitutional Court, 49% of respondents said they ‘trust it’ and 36% said they ‘do not trust it’.

Compared to a survey conducted in April last year, when former President Yoon Seok-yeol was sentenced to impeachment, trust in the Constitutional Court fell by 12 percentage points, and distrust rose by 5 percentage points.

Since the implementation of the revised Criminal Procedure Act, which aims to separate investigation and prosecution, the reliability of investigative agencies such as the High-ranking Public Officials Crime Investigation Office, the Serious Crimes Investigation Office, and the National Police Agency, and the Public Prosecution Office has remained in the 20% range.

The agency with the lowest trust was the Corruption Investigation Agency, with 24% trusting and 58% distrusting.

The newly launched Public Prosecution Office following the abolition of the Prosecutor's Office was surveyed with 25% trust and 50% distrust, the Central Investigation Office was surveyed with 29% trust and 49% distrust, and the National Police Agency with expanded authority was surveyed with 29% trust and 57% distrust.

Regarding the performance of this year's National Assembly audit, only 15% responded that 'there were results'.

46% said there was no result, and 39% had reservations.

In particular, 25% of Democratic Party supporters and 8% of People Power Party supporters responded that ‘there was success.’

The most common reason for considering that there were achievements was 'learning new facts and information' (9%), followed by 'overall it was good' (7%), 'discussion of the judiciary and judicial reform', and 'role of pointing out and checking government policies' (over 6%).

The reasons for the lack of results were 'just slandering the opponent, political strife, and fighting' (22%), 'no improvement or change' (11%), 'pushing by the ruling party and tyranny of the majority party' (10%), and 'deviating from the core and poor content' (8%).

The National Assembly members who played an active part in the audit of government affairs were People Power Party lawmaker Kim Tae-gyu and independent Han Dong-hoon (over 5%), People Power Party lawmaker Joo Jin-woo (3%), and Lee Jin-sook (1.5%).

In the pan-ruling party, the names of Seo Young-kyo of the Democratic Party (1.3%) and Park Eun-jung of the Innovation Party (1.2%) were mentioned.

This survey was conducted using telephone interview methods using randomly selected wireless phone virtual numbers. The sampling error is ±3.1p at the 95% confidence level, the contact rate is 40.8%, and the response rate is 9.7%. For more information, please refer to the National Election Opinion Survey Deliberation Committee website.