Anti-Corruption Commission uncovers 353 cases of recruitment corruption at the Election Commission... Reports and requests investigation

Announcement of Comprehensive Survey on Career Recruitment by the Election Commission

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) announced on the 11th that it identified 353 cases of hiring irregularities after conducting a comprehensive investigation into the career recruitment of public officials by the National Election Commission (NEC) from 2017 to May of this year. In connection with this, the ACRC decided to file complaints against 28 individuals involved in the recruitment and request investigations for 312 cases.

In May, when allegations of preferential hiring of children of senior NEC officials surfaced, the ACRC formed a dedicated investigation team of 37 members, led by Vice Chairman and Secretary General Jeong Seung-yoon, including personnel from the Ministry of Personnel Management and the National Police Agency. The investigation team conducted a full-scale investigation over 52 days from June 14 to August 4, including on-site inspections, into the career recruitment of a total of 384 NEC public officials appointed over the past seven years, and reported the results to the plenary committee on the same day.

According to the ACRC investigation, out of 162 career recruitments conducted by the NEC itself over the past seven years, 104 cases (64%) were found to have violated the fair recruitment procedures stipulated by the NEC’s internal personnel regulations under the National Public Service Act. The NEC is required to conduct regular personnel audits under delegated regulations of the National Public Service Act, but it was found that the Central NEC did not conduct any personnel audits during this period.

Among the 384 public officials appointed through career recruitment by the NEC in the past seven years, 58 individuals (15%) were suspected of unfair acceptance, including 31 cases of preferential hiring and 29 cases of improper determination of successful candidates. Specifically, although the National Public Service Act requires a separate career recruitment process to convert fixed-term public officials below grade 5 to regular positions, 31 individuals, including three grade 5 administrative officers, were hired as fixed-term public officials with one-year contracts and then converted to regular general public officials without document or interview examinations. Additionally, job postings were only made on the NEC internal bulletin board, allowing only NEC-related personnel to apply (3 cases), and there were cases where applicants who did not meet age or other qualification requirements were accepted, or qualified applicants were rejected (13 cases).

Furthermore, among two applicants with the same career background, only NEC employees were given additional points to secure final acceptance, and cases were found where unqualified candidates were accepted based on career certificates lacking job descriptions. There were also instances where the criteria for determining successful candidates were changed without justifiable reasons, causing those who passed document and interview screenings to be rejected, or additional candidates were hired beyond the preliminary successful candidates announced in the recruitment notice.

There were also 299 cases of violations of procedures stipulated by the National Public Service Act and the NEC’s internal personnel regulations. Examples include excessively restricting eligibility criteria (from requiring at least one year of practical experience in a related field to requiring at least one year of NEC practical experience), thereby limiting application opportunities to NEC employees only. The recruitment announcement period was shortened (from 10 days to 4 days), and even after the ban on new hires for management and operations positions in 2013, two senior secretaries were hired as management and operations staff, extending their terms. Interview panels were composed solely of internal members (26 cases across 11 regional NEC offices), violating the rule that at least 50% of interviewers must be external members. Points were awarded inconsistently with preferential criteria (e.g., although a master's degree is worth 3 points and a doctorate 5 points, two evaluators awarded 5 points to a master's degree holder), and 181 candidates were appointed as successful hires without verification or confirmation of submitted career and supporting documents.

The ACRC decided to request investigations for 312 of the 353 detected cases that require fact-finding regarding family favoritism or improper solicitation, and to file complaints against 28 recruitment-related individuals suspected of intentional misconduct or repeatedly conducting inadequate recruitment.

However, this investigation did not cover the overall recruitment of non-public officials or examine family relationships or conflicts of interest between successful career recruitment candidates and recruitment-related personnel, as the NEC did not cooperate in submitting related materials, according to the ACRC. Responsibility for unfair acceptance or favoritism is expected to be clarified through investigations.

Jeong Seung-yoon, Vice Chairman and Secretary General of the ACRC, stated, "The fairness of public official recruitment is a fundamental trust that the public expects from public institutions. We hope that the results of this investigation will serve as an opportunity to establish a culture of fair recruitment. Going forward, the ACRC will continue to strive to establish fair recruitment to ensure the government's national agenda of 'guaranteeing fair opportunities for youth to take off' is successfully implemented."