Honorable fellow citizens!

The New Year 2017, Year of the Rooster has dawned. With our dedicated staff of the judiciary, I extend warm greetings to you all. I sincerely wish that your cherished dreams will all come true and the New Year is filled with joy and happiness.

Despite numerous challenges at home and abroad over the last year, Korea made ceaseless efforts to achieve growth and make progress on all fronts - political, economic and social. In particular, even amid intense political turmoil – a magnitude of which not seen before in our political history, we demonstrated both to the nation and the world a law-abiding spirit, with its level seen as globally unprecedented and a mature sense of citizenship for the free democratic basic order. This has not only become our source of self-confidence and pride, but also made Korea an awe-inspiring nation and the envy of the world. Although a host of challenges lie ahead of us, I hope this year, we can take a leap forward to become a more advanced democracy which enjoys prosperity and stability by coming together with unity and solidarity, based on pride in our history through which we have wisely overcome whatever ordeals we faced.
 
Fellow citizens!

More than seven decades of postindependence breakneck growth of Korea has engendered a lot of complex economic, as well as hierarchical interests. With such interests increasingly becoming more acute, we are witnessing surge in disputes and conflicts, while resolving them is becoming ever more challenging. The judiciary will further advance professionalism in the trial of cases to faithfully reflect changes and trends of the time and humbly listen to the voices of the people, however small they may be. Furthermore, we will faithfully carry out the role of the judiciary, a mandate given by the people by entrenching the rule of law through not only ensuring trials are conducted in an impartial and neutral manner - the core function of the judiciary, but also performing adjudication tasks in ways that are prudent and stern. In addition, the Korean judiciary will do our utmost to make our society a place where principles, common sense, and justice are truly alive.

Honorable fellow citizens!

In the New Year, I ask for your generous support as the members of the judiciary make sincere efforts to renew ourselves to make the judiciary more trusted by the people. Also, I ask for your warm support and encouragement so that such efforts bear fruitful results and lead to a firmly established rule of law in every corner of our society.

Fellow citizens! I wish you all the best in 2017.

January 1, 2017

YANG Sung-tae
The Chief Justice