The Supreme Court of Korea () is the highest ordinary court in the judicial branch of South Korea, seated in Seocho, Seoul. Established under Chapter 5 of the Constitution of South Korea, the Court has ultimate and comprehensive jurisdiction over all cases except those cases falling under the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court of Korea. It consists of fourteen Justices, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Korea. The Supreme Court is at the top of the hierarchy of all ordinary courts in South Korea, and traditionally represented the conventional judiciary of South Korea. The Supreme Court has equivalent status as one of the two highest courts in South Korea. The other is the Constitutional Court of Korea. History and Status The original constitution during the First Republic established 'Supreme Court' and 'Constitutional Committee' () in Chapter 5. The Supreme Court was established as the highest ordinary court but lacked the power of constitutional review, which was conferred upon the Constitutional Committee, a sort of constitutional court. This distribution of judicial power inside judiciary was never fully realized under rule of South Korea's first president Syngman Rhee, whose dictatorship hampered the Committee's function and eventually left it unable to re-constitute itself. Though the Supreme Court had no power of judicial review, it enjoyed judicial independence under the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 'Kim Byung-ro' (), from 1948 to 1957. Renowned for his ardent participation in Korean independence movement during the Japanese colonial rule, Chief Justice Kim Byung-ro famously defended the independence of the judiciary from Syngman Rhee. However, after Kim Byung-ro's retirement in 1957, the Supreme Court fell to autocratic influence. By giving the death sentence to Park's political contender Cho Bong-am in 1959 and also by sentencing death on the defendants of People's Revolutionary Party Incident in 1975 under Park Chung-hee's era, the Supreme Court gained notorious reputation for judicial murder () as obediently sentencing capital punishments over spy scandals fabricated by dictators. After the April Revolution, the Constitutional Court was established to replace the Constitutional Committee, but the Supreme Court remained largely unaffected by the changes. After Park Chung-hee's 1961 coup, the Second Republic was dissolved and, after a nominal transition to civilian rule from a military junta, the Third Republic was established in 1962. The Constitutional Court, itself never formed because of the coup, was abolished while the power of judicial review was