Seoul court issues first easy-read ruling for plaintiff with intellectual disability
A Seoul court rewrote a disability case decision in plain language with illustrations so a plaintiff with an intellectual disability could understand the victory.
A four-step graphic in the ruling summarizing the case, moving from the district office's refusal to recognize the plaintiff as having an intellectual disability, to the court overturning that decision, to the plaintiff winning.SEOUL ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
A Seoul court has translated one of its own rulings out of dense legalese and into plain, everyday language, complete with illustrations, so that the plaintiff, a 26-year-old with an intellectual disability, could understand that they had won.
The Seoul Administrative Court said Monday it had handed down the "easy-read" decision on Thursday, overturning a district office's refusal to register the plaintiff as a person with a disability. It was the first ruling written this way under a Supreme Court directive, in effect since January, that requires courts to make legal information accessible to people with disabilities.
A Korean ruling normally states its outcome under a formal heading in dense legal phrasing. Next to that heading, a plain-language note, "the conclusion of the ruling," was added.
In place of a line declaring that the district office's decision finding the plaintiff ineligible for a disability rating was revoked, the court wrote simply, "The plaintiff won the case."
A page from Seoul Administrative Court's easy-read ruling uses plain sentences and an illustration to spell out what the decision means for the plaintiff, lays out the court's reasoning in everyday language, telling the plaintiff that they won, that the district office's decision is canceled and that they are now recognized as a person with an intellectual disability.SEOUL ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Over four pages, the ruling restated the result in short sentences beside illustrations.
"The court cancels the district office's decision," the diagram reads. The ruling then spelled out what that would mean in daily life.
"The district office must now give the plaintiff the help the law provides for people with disabilities," the easy-to-read ruling said.
It even paused to define a legal term, noting that cancellation "means treating the decision as if it never happened." One drawing showed a person handing another a welfare card. Another showed the plaintiff smiling, both arms raised in celebration.
The plaintiff grew up in a care facility after being abused by their parents and has lived with a range of psychiatric conditions since middle school, including obsessive-compulsive symptoms, violent tendencies and attention deficit. With help from a Catholic organization, they remain in a psychiatric hospital. Over a three-year period after they reached adulthood, intelligence tests at Seoul National University Hospital put their IQ at 61 to 67, and they were diagnosed with an intellectual disability.
However, the Yangcheon District Office in western Seoul had rejected the plaintiff's application to register as a person with a disability, citing an IQ above 70 in childhood and a doctor's assessment that they "give up easily on difficult problems." The plaintiff sued to overturn the decision with help from a support organization.
Seoul Administrative Court in Seocho District, southern Seoul in January 2022.YONHAP
The court sided with the plaintiff and explained why in the same plain style.
"The court finds the district office's decision was wrong. There are three reasons," the ruling said. It then addressed the plaintiff directly.
"First, the doctors who met and treated you in person over a long time are believable. Second, you have found it hard to be around other people since you were young, which is why a support group helped you. Third, the judge also met you in person in court, and saw that you would find ordinary social life difficult," it said. In its formal reasoning, spread over 23 pages, the panel held that legal disability cannot be decided by IQ alone.
A page from the Seoul Administrative Court's easy-read ruling uses plain sentences and an illustration to spell out what the decision means for the plaintiff, who can now register as a person with an intellectual disability and receive the support the law provides.SEOUL ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
"Intellectual disability under the Act on Welfare of Persons with Disabilities must be judged by whether impaired intellectual ability causes significant restrictions in daily and social life, and when such restrictions are recognized, a disability cannot be hastily denied on the basis of an IQ score alone, an incomplete measure," the court said.
It also drew on the philosopher Licia Carlson's book "The Faces of Intellectual Disability" (2009). An IQ test is "not a classification system created from a welfare perspective," the court said.
Easy-read rulings first appeared in Korea in 2022, when the same juge wrote one for a plaintiff who had lost.
Beside the formal order, the judge added the line "Unfortunately, the plaintiff lost," which drew notice but went no further.
The Judicial Policy Research Institute, a body under the Supreme Court, published a report in 2024 on how to draft such rulings, and the panel followed its methods here. The court generated the illustrations with an AI model trained on the report. The directive took effect in January, with Article 6 calling on courts to provide sign-language, written and easy-read materials so people with disabilities can access information on an equal footing with everyone else. Thursday's decision was the first easy-read ruling issued under it.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
