North Korea · Courts
Court structure of North Korea
Every tier of the judiciary, what it hears, and where an appeal goes next.
The hierarchy, top to bottom
- Final appellate — Central Court
- Highest court; accountable to the Supreme People's Assembly and its Presidium.
- Appellate — Provincial and special city courts
- Appeals from people's courts and first instance in serious cases.
- First instance — People's Courts
- City, county and district level, sitting with elected lay assessors.
- Specialist — Military and railway courts
- Separate jurisdiction over service personnel and transport offences.
- Outside the courts — Extrajudicial political detention
- The kwanliso system documented by the 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry operates without trial.
Every court in the hierarchy
- supremePyongyangSupreme Court of the Democratic People's Republic of KoreaStated in the Constitution and the Court Organisation Act as the highest judicial organ, responsible to the Supreme People's Assembly, with appellate and supervisory jurisdiction over provincial and people's courts.
- appellateProvincial centresProvincial CourtsProvided by statute with first-instance jurisdiction over serious matters and appellate jurisdiction over the people's courts of the province.
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