THE COURTS

THE SUPREME COURT and, eventually, HMCJ were housed in purpose-built buildings with formal courtrooms and judges’ private chambers; but, in the smaller consulates in both Japan and China, consuls held their Courts in their offices. This latter position was also the case in Korea although, for the second Bethell case, the former Legation guards’ barracks were brought into use as a courtroom. We do not know where the Supreme Court sat to hear the O’Neil case – presumably, in one of the public rooms at the Consulate-General. At both hearings of the Supreme Court in Seoul, the judges wore wigs and robes and counsel gowns.

We cannot assess the cost of administering justice under the extraterritorial regime in Korea. Although the Consulate-General's pro forma accounts contained line items for ‘Administration of Justice’ and ‘Fines levied’, the only quarterly accounts which show up in the records are those supplied by Aston for the last quarter of 1884, and no fines are recorded in them. No individual Court's costs are identifiable from the extant records. Even in Japan and China, it was only in Yokohama and Shanghai that any distinction was made between the Courts and the consulates; elsewhere, court costs were simply part of the consular establishments’ general funding. This must also have been the case in Korea.

Administration of justice was certainly not a money-spinner in Korea: there were only ever a handful of cases. As there were no private prosecutions, no fees would have arisen from this source – and were just $1.50 per prosecution in any event. Civil suits incurred higher costs – because plaint fees were a percentage of the amount claimed and additional fees were levied in connection with most of the procedural steps. Nevertheless, hardly any civil proceedings were ever issued formally in Korea.

By a mutual concession in Japan, Japanese and British litigants were excused payment of court fees in each other's courts. It is unclear whether a similar concession existed in Korea; but, given the general absence of civil complaints and the Consuls using their ‘good offices’ in most of them, it would not have been a material practical concern.