A/HRC/25/CRP.1 leadership of the Party.66 The Constitution also establishes that orders of the Supreme Leader supersede laws or other directives.67 The political function of the judiciary is inscribed in article 162 of the Constitution, which, among other tasks, requires the courts to protect through judicial procedure state power and the socialist system and to staunchly combat class enemies. The superiority of executive orders and the political function assigned to the courts severely curtails the independence and impartiality of the judges. 124. Formally, judges in the DPRK are appointed by and accountable to the Supreme People’s Assembly and provincial people’s assemblies. One former official, however, directly acquainted with the process, indicated that judges are in practice selected by and subject to the orders of the Supreme Leader and the Workers’ Party of Korea.68 As a matter of law, the courts are reportedly also subject to the detailed oversight of the Office of the Prosecutor, which is legally required to consider each case to determine whether a hearing has been conducted at the right time and in the correct manner as required by law.69 125. In the 1960s, after Kim Il-sung had eliminated his potential rivals who were largely affiliated with the Chinese and Soviet factions, he actively distanced himself from the Soviet Union and China. China by 1966 was in the throes of the Cultural Revolution which caused great human suffering and disruptions that threatened to spill over into the DPRK.70 As Kim Il-sung also reduced contact with the Soviet Union and East European socialist states, economic assistance from these countries, which had been substantial, likewise began to dwindle.71 At the same time, he expanded his cult of personality and set out a policy of self-reliance and extreme nationalism known as Juche.72 Kim Il-sung promoted 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 32 It is even more expressly entrenched in the reported Ten Principles for the Establishment of the OneIdeology System. Principle 5.3 reportedly stipulates that Kim Il-sung’s instructions must be viewed as a legal and supreme order. According to article 109 of the DPRK Constitution, the National Defence Commission has the duty and the authority to abrogate the decisions and directives of state organs that run counter to the orders of the Chairman of the National Defence Commission and to the decisions and directives of the National Defence Commission. Article 100 stipulates that the Chairman of the National Defence Commission is the Supreme Leader of the DPRK. TLC037. Witnesses who were confidentially interviewed by the Commission are identified by only a six digit code. The identity of each witness is known to the Commission. Article 11 of the Prosecutory Supervision Law, as stated in KINU, White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea (2013), p. 174. In the late 1950s to early 1960s, in the wake of the massive famine brought on by China’s Great Leap Forward, it is estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 ethnic Korean Chinese emigrated to the DPRK. From World War II until 1984, it is estimated that the DPRK received $4.75 billion in aid from the Soviet Union (roughly 50 per cent), China (20 per cent) and the Soviet-aligned countries of Eastern Europe (30 per cent). Victor Cha, The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (New York, Ecco, 2012), p. 28. For a detailed overview of assistance received between 1953 and 1960 from not only the Soviet Union and China but also East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, Mongolia and North Vietnam, as well as the breakdown of Soviet aid by product such as rolling metal, tires and sugar, see Stephen Kotkin and Charles Armstrong, “A Socialist Regional World Order in North East Asia After World War II”, in Korea at the Center, Charles K. Armstrong and others, eds, p. 121. According to the Embassy of the German Democratic Republic in 1961: “The cult of personality surrounding Comrade Kim Il Sung has been growing steadily for some time. Everything the Party and the Korean people earn is attributed to Comrade Kim Il Sung. There is no room, no classroom, no public building in which a photo of Kim Il Sung cannot be found. The Museum of the War of National Liberation is designed entirely around the role of Kim Il Sung. There are no less than 12 figures of Kim Il Sung in the rooms of the museum, each larger than the next. The history of the revolutionary war and the formation of the Communist Party of Korea are not correctly portrayed.