# Seoul court issues first AI-assisted ‘easy-read’ ruling > Source: > Published: 2026-06-29 05:08:41+00:00 A Seoul court on Thursday issued the country’s first “easy-read” court ruling, rewriting a complex legal judgment in plain Korean with visual aids so that a plaintiff with an intellectual disability could understand the outcome of their suit. “Conclusion of the ruling: Plaintiff won the case. The district office must pay the money spent in the suit,” the simplified ruling read. The Seoul Administrative Court said Monday that it ruled in favor of a plaintiff with an intellectual disability in a lawsuit filed against the Yangcheon District Office. The plaintiff had sought to overturn the district’s decision denying them recognition as a person with a disability. The court provided the plaintiff with a separate “easy-to-understand ruling,” alongside the official written judgment. “The plaintiff, who has an intellectual disability, may have difficulty fully understanding a judgment written in the usual format, so the court is providing an easy-to-understand ruling,” the court wrote at the beginning of the simplified document. The easy-read version was only four pages long, compared to the original ruling of more than 20 pages. It explained the result and the reasons for the court’s decision in plain language, using short sentences, summaries and illustrations outlining the course of the trial. The formal ruling used usual legal phrasing such as “the defendant’s decision not to recognize the plaintiff’s disability status is revoked.” The easy-read version simplified the language, saying, “The plaintiff won,” “The district office’s decision is canceled” and “The district office must now help the person with a disability.” The plaintiff had filed an administrative suit after the district office refused to register them as a person with an intellectual disability. The plaintiff had received IQ scores below 70 in three intelligence tests and had been diagnosed with an intellectual disability by multiple psychiatrists. But the district office refused to recognize their disability, citing factors including the plaintiff’s attitude during the tests and childhood assessment records. The court overturned the district office’s decision, citing the medical diagnoses and its own observation of the plaintiff during court proceedings. It also held that intellectual disability should not be determined solely by one's IQ scores, but should be assessed together with the limitations a person faces in daily life. The Seoul Administrative Court described the ruling as the first case to reflect a “social model of disability,” viewing disability not only as an individual medical condition, but also as something shaped by interaction with social environments. The court said this was the first time an easy-read judgment was issued under the Supreme Court’s new guidelines on judicial support for vulnerable groups, which took effect this year. All three judges on the panel were also members of the Supreme Court’s Disability Law Research Society. The ruling is part of the Seoul Administrative Court’s broader push to develop what it calls a “Korean-style social court” model. The court has expanded specialized benches this year to handle social security-related cases involving vulnerable groups, including people with disabilities, older adults, pregnant women and children. The illustrations used in the easy-read ruling were produced with the help of a large language model. The court said the use of artificial intelligence made the production process cheaper and faster. “An easy-read ruling is not simply about making sentences easier,” a Seoul Administrative Court official said. “It is aimed at helping the parties understand the outcome of their own trial by themselves.” seungku99@heraldcorp.com