It was reported on the 29th that the National Conference of Judges’ Representatives announced a new vote to select judicial members who will participate as first-line judges in the Supreme Court Justice Candidate Recommendation Committee. After voting for and against each of the two candidates, and the number of positive votes was the same, it was decided to hold a runoff by voting again for only one candidate. In this regard, within the Court the criticism is raised that “the voting method was wrong from the beginning”.
Supreme Court. /News 1
There are a total of 124 representatives from each court who make up the Judges’ Representative Council. In the past, when there was only one candidate, 124 representatives had to vote for and against, and if the candidate received the approval of a majority of registered voters and a majority of voters, he or she was elected to the Judiciary Committee. . This time there were two candidates, so among the candidates who received the majority of votes in favor of the majority of registered voters, the candidate who received the largest number of votes was elected.
According to the coverage of this article, the judges’ representative meeting was held for two days starting from the 24th, with Hyeon-young Yoo (34th class of the Judicial Research and Training Institute) being the chief judge of the Yeoju Branch of the District Court of Suwon and Suwon Family Court and Chang-hwan Kwon (36th class), Busan Rehabilitation Court, who are candidates for judicial members of the Supreme Court Justice Candidates Recommendation Committee. Each vote was for or against the chief justice. As a result, the number of votes in favor of the two candidates stood at 68, and it was reported that Chief Justice Yoo received more votes against. Online judges were said to have been asked to vote for or against each candidate.
As a result, after an internal discussion, the meeting of judges’ representatives decided to hold another vote by May 1st. An active judge in the Judges’ Representative Council said: “In many cases, there was only one candidate, so we used to only elect by voting for or against that candidate. He added: “It had never happened that there were multiple candidates “. run this way and also go to a new vote. The Conference of Judges’ Representatives is said to have chosen to select only one of the two candidates on the ballot.
However, controversy is brewing within the court over the Judges’ Representative Council’s decision to vote in the runoff. A metropolitan area chief judge stated, “For and against votes give meaning even to no votes” and “Conducting a runoff because the number of yes votes is equal may raise suspicions that the decision was made by a specific person in mind as a member of the Judiciary Committee.” “There is,” he said. If the number of positive votes is equal, the candidate with the fewest negative votes is elected, which is in line with the purpose of voting pro/ against.
The vote consisted of votes for or against each of the two candidates. For this reason, a significant number of judges who participated in the vote appeared to have voted in favor of both candidates. There are 124 people entitled to vote and if the 68 votes in favor of the two candidates are added, 136 votes are obtained. One judge said: “It should have been decided from the beginning to select only one candidate, so there would have been no negative reaction.” In response to this, an official from the Judges’ Representative Council said: “It seems that we were used to voting for or against only one candidate, so we did not carefully consider the voting method to select one of the two candidates.”
In accordance with the Court Organization Law, a judicial member, who is not a judge of the Supreme Court, participates as an ex officio member of the Committee for the Recommendation of Candidates of Supreme Court Judges. Judicial Committee members are responsible for vetting individuals recommended as candidates for the next Supreme Court Justice, and the court also forms a support group of frontline judges to support the work of Judicial Committee members prior to participating in the judicial committee. recommendation of Supreme Court justice nominees. For this reason, he is known to play an important role in the activities of the Committee on the Recommendations of Justice Candidates of the Supreme Court, for example by transmitting the opinions of front-line judges.
Chief Justice Yoo and Chief Justice Kwon, who are candidates this time, are said to belong to the International Human Rights Law Research Association, known as a group of progressive judges. Chief Justice Yoo is a judge belonging to the Human Rights and Gender Law Research Group and is said to be a member of the “Modern Society and Sexual Crimes Research Group”, a small group within the Law Society of gender. Chief Justice Kwon is said to have no clear political leanings.
Inside the court, there is also concern that the judicial members of the Supreme Court Justice Candidate Recommendations Committee were primarily judges with specific political leanings. Once the selection process for judicial members is completed, a judge with expertise in human rights law will again serve as a member of the Supreme Court Justice Candidate Recommendation Committee. Since the tenure of former Chief Justice Kim Myeong-soo, of the 10 judicial members of the Committee for Recommending Candidates to the Supreme Court, seven have been involved in recommending candidates for the next Supreme Court justice, seven by the Law on Human Rights, one from the Korea Law Research Society and one from the Gender Act. There was only one member of the judiciary who was not a member of a specific political group and was elected during the Yoon Seok-yeol administration. Chief Justice Han said: “A judicial member may be seen as having a role that goes beyond that of a member who merely participates in the candidate recommendation committee,” and added: “It will be difficult to avoid criticism for not having made every effort to avoid noise during the selection process.”
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