The Supreme Court said Friday it has decided to refer a senior judge to the ethics committee to determine whether his recent Facebook post that criticized the government violated political neutrality.

The judge in Seoul, whose identity was withheld, criticized President Lee Myung-bak and his Cabinet in the post Tuesday when the ruling party-controlled parliament rammed through the free trade pact with the United States.

"I will never forget Nov. 22, 2011, when the president (Lee), pro-America to the core, and his trade officials sold the nation and the lives of its people," he wrote on his page.

When faced with critical responses, the judge deleted the post the next day.

The judge's description of Lee came apparently from a 2008 conversation in which the president's older brother Lee Sang-deuk told then-U.S. ambassador Alexander Vershbow that the newly elected South Korean president was "pro-U.S. and pro-Japan to the core," according to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

On Friday, a Supreme Court official said the highest court was looking into the Facebook posting and that the ethics committee would convene Tuesday to determine whether the post constitutes a violation of the code of ethics for judges.

The committe will also discuss whether to put together specific ethics guidelines, he said.

The case set off debates about judges' personal use of SNS and their obligation to stay neutral.

"Facebook is a private arena, with a high probability of spreading messages," a top court official said. "The ethics committee will review whether his posting violated the judges' ethics code and study the need for (SNS) guidelines. (Yonhap News)