Premodern Korea Lecture with Jungwon Kim

Governing Justice: Legal Interpretation and Judicial Practice in Chosŏn Korea

Governing Justice: Legal Interpretation and Judicial Practice in Chosŏn Korea

This talk explores the role of legal knowledge, particularly the expertise of specialized legal officers, in shaping judicial practice in Chosŏn Korea. These officers constituted a distinct category of legal expertise within the bureaucratic hierarchy, differentiated from Confucian scholar officials by formal legal training and technical authority. Institutionalized through specialized examinations in law, they occupied a pivotal position in assisting local magistrates in adjudication and guiding judicial interpretation and decision making. Drawing on an array of archival sources, including law codes, legal commentaries, trial records, and evaluations of official performance, the talk traces how these specialists were trained, how they exercised authority in local courts, and how their work was supervised and assessed. By centering these often overlooked figures, the talk illuminates the intricacies of legal interpretation in practice and considers how evolving forms of expertise and legal literacy influenced judicial decisions at the local level while informing the relationship between technical knowledge, judicial authority, and the pursuit of justice in Chosŏn Korea.