32 High Court Chief Judges Among 55 Candidates
Park Young-jae and Others Have Extensive Judicial Administration Experience
Notable Former Senior Judicial Researchers Include Ma Yong-ju, Oh Young-jun, and Hwang Jin-gu
Female Candidates Also Have Appointment Potential
Among the 55 candidates nominated as successors to Supreme Court Justices Kim Seonsu (63, Judicial Research and Training Institute Class 17), Lee Dongwon (61, Class 17), and Noh Jeonghee (61, Class 19), who will retire on August 1, legal circles both inside and outside are focusing on which candidate will be finally selected. Attention is also drawn to whether a former high court chief judge, who has become sidelined, will be appointed as a Supreme Court Justice in this personnel reshuffle.
According to an analysis by Law Times, among the 55 candidates from classes 16 to 28 of the Judicial Research and Training Institute, 51 candidates, or 92.7%, are current judges or former judges. Considering that the majority of past Supreme Court Justices, including those from the courts of Yang Seung-tae and Kim Myung-soo, were judges, this distribution is not unusual, but the overwhelming majority are judge-origin candidates.
Among them, 32 are current high court chief judges, accounting for more than half, or 58.2%, of the total. Among the former high court chief judges are candidates with rich judicial administrative experience such as Park Young-jae (55, Class 22), former Deputy Chief of the Judicial Administration Office; Hong Dong-gi (56, Class 22), Senior Chief Judge of Seoul High Court; and Shim Jun-bo (57, Class 20) and Cha Moon-ho (55, Class 23), chief judges of Seoul High Court. Currently, among the Supreme Court Justices, only Oh Seok-jun and Seo Kyung-hwan have judicial administrative experience, leading some to analyze that a person with judicial administrative capability should be appointed as a Supreme Court Justice. This is because a person who will later serve as the head of the Judicial Administration Office is needed.
It is also notable that all former senior judicial research judges currently remaining in the courts?Ma Yong-ju (54, Class 23), Oh Young-jun (54, Class 23), and Hwang Jin-gu (53, Class 24), all chief judges of Seoul High Court?have agreed to the screening. The Supreme Court receives more than 40,000 cases annually, and one Supreme Court Justice handles about 3,000 cases. Experience as a senior judicial research judge can be helpful for smooth appellate review processing.
Since female Supreme Court Justice Noh Jeonghee is about to retire, it is highly likely that one female candidate will be appointed. There are six female candidates: Woo Ra-ok (59, Class 23), chief judge of Incheon District Court; Yoon Seung-eun (56, Class 23), chief judge of Seoul High Court; Kim Bok-hyung (56, Class 24), chief judge of Seoul High Court; Park Soon-young (57, Class 25), high court judge of Seoul High Court; Lee Sook-yeon (55, Class 26), high court judge of the Patent Court; and Jung Gye-seon (54, Class 27), chief judge of Seoul Western District Court. Among them, Chief Judge Kim Bok-hyung has agreed to the screening for the first time.
Since no Supreme Court Justice has ever been appointed from among high court judges or district court chief judges who are not female, it is also noteworthy whether a Supreme Court Justice will emerge from among them. Names include Jung Jae-oh (54, Class 25), high court judge of Seoul High Court and presiding judge of the appellate trial for Son Joon-sung, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of Daegu High Prosecutors' Office, who was sentenced to prison in the first trial over the 'gobal-saju' (accusation manipulation) suspicion, and Son Cheol-woo (53, Class 25), high court judge of Seoul High Court and former standing member of the Sentencing Commission.
Meanwhile, 12 candidates from the 23rd class of the Judicial Research and Training Institute, the same class as President Yoon Seok-yeol, account for 21.8%. They include Lee Wan-gyu (63, Class 23), head of the Legislative Affairs Office; Kim Moon-gwan (60, Class 23), senior chief judge of Busan High Court; Noh Kyung-pil (59, Class 23), chief judge of Suwon High Court; Woo Ra-ok, chief judge; Moon Kwang-seop (58, Class 23); Yoon Kang-yeol (57, Class 23); Park Hyung-joon (55, Class 23); Ma Yong-ju; Oh Young-jun; Yoon Seung-eun; Lee Jae-kwon (55, Class 23); and Cha Moon-ho, chief judge of Seoul High Court.
In particular, two former prosecutors have agreed to the screening this time, raising interest in whether a prosecutor-origin Supreme Court Justice will be appointed for the first time since former Supreme Court Justice Park Sang-ok. The main figures are Lee Geon-ri (60, Class 16), lawyer at Dongin Law Firm, and Lee Wan-gyu, head of the Legislative Affairs Office. Under the Yoon Seok-yeol administration, former prosecutors are advancing into various sectors.
Since retiring Supreme Court Justice Kim Seonsu is a pure non-judicial background, attention is also focused on whether Lee Kwang-soo (62, Class 17), lawyer at Hanseung Law Firm, and Lee Heon (62, Class 16), lawyer at Hongik Law Firm, will be considered.
In legal circles, it was also noted that Gu Hoe-geun (56, Class 22), chief judge of Seoul High Court and presiding judge of the appellate trial for the suspension of execution application for the medical school quota increase, agreed to the screening. On the 16th, he recognized the standing of medical school students as plaintiffs but dismissed the case.
Also, it was a topic that Lee Gyun-yong (61, Class 16), chief judge of Seoul High Court, whose nomination for Chief Justice was rejected by a 30-vote margin in the National Assembly plenary session, agreed once again to the Supreme Court Justice screening.
Park Su-yeon, Law Times Reporter
※This article is based on content supplied by Law Times.
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