By Na Jeong-ju
If confirmed, four candidates recommended by Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae as new justices will deprive the highest judicial assembly of diversity, opposition parties and critics say.
They contend that if the four are confirmed, the court will have a conservative bias.
Their ideological leaning is further compounded by their gender, age and academic background.
All four candidates are men in their 50s and three of them studied law at Seoul National University (SNU).
If they are appointed, 12 of the 14-member bench will be SNU graduates, and there will be only one female justice.
The nominees are Koh Young-han, vice minister of the National Court Administration; Kim Shin, chief of the Ulsan District Court; Kim Byeong-hwa, head of the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office; and Kim Chang-suk, president of the Supreme Court Library.
They must proceed through parliamentary hearings. If confirmed, they will succeed four outgoing justices, whose six-year term will end in July.
Some experts expressed concerns that the parliamentary endorsement process could drag on due to partisan wrangling over their qualifications, making it impossible for the Supreme Court to fill the seats in time.
“If the National Assembly fails to approve the nominees by July, it may hamper the operations of the top court. The biggest problem is that vacancies could affect rulings,” said a judge from the Seoul Central District Court.
There is a general consensus among liberals that Yang’s nominations lack diversity. Even before the nominees were chosen, the main opposition Democratic United Party criticized the Supreme Court for selecting candidates who don’t represent diversity in terms of gender, age, ideological stance and academic background.
Court officials, however, dismissed the claims, saying evaluations were conducted in a fair manner.
Of the four nominees, Kim Shin drew most attention.
The 55-year-old judge is physically challenged because he suffered from polio as a child. Since being appointed as a district court judge in 1983, he has made efforts to enhance the rights of the disabled and underprivileged people.
He applied to become a judge in 1982 after completing the required courses at the Judicial Research and Training Institute, but couldn’t be appointed because of his disability.
“At the time, there were four physically challenged applicants, including me. We were among 70 applicants. All the disabled applicants couldn’t become judges,” Kim said in a media interview. “It’s unimaginable these days to discriminate against applicants because of a disability, but it happened at the time.”
The decision drew fierce protest from the public and Kim was able to become a judge in 1983.
If appointed, Kim will be the first physically challenged Supreme Court justice in 18 years. He will also be the first justice from a provincial area since 2004.