Board of Audit and Inspection Releases Results Before Constitutional Court Ruling
"Disciplinary Action Requested for 32 Current and Former Election Commission Officials"
The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) announced the results of an audit concerning family and relative hiring requests at the Seoul Election Commission and six other city and provincial election commissions, while the Constitutional Court ruled that election commissions are not subject to BAI’s duty inspections.
On the 27th, the Constitutional Court unanimously decided with all eight justices that "the duty inspection conducted by the BAI on the election commissions infringed upon the election commissions’ constitutionally granted authority to independently perform their duties." The Court added, "Allowing the BAI, which is under the President, to conduct duty inspections on the election commissions contradicts the constitutional amendment makers’ intent to institutionally block the influence of the President and the executive branch on election management."
The election commissions are independent constitutional bodies, so the BAI, an executive branch agency, inspecting them is a violation of the Constitution. In other words, the BAI has no inspection authority over the election commissions, so auditing them is unconstitutional, and the audit results can be interpreted as fundamentally invalid. This is similar to how investigation results from an investigative agency without investigative authority are invalid, leading to dismissal of prosecution.
Meanwhile, just before the Constitutional Court’s ruling, the BAI disclosed the audit results on the "Personnel Management Practices including Hiring at the Election Commissions," revealing that personnel officers at the election commissions used various illegal and irregular methods to pass candidates or give preferential treatment or exclusion to specific individuals. The audit uncovered multiple violations such as family and relative hiring requests, manipulation of interview scores, and falsification of personnel documents, and requested severe disciplinary action against a total of 32 people.
According to the BAI, preferential hiring at the election commissions mainly occurred in career competitive recruitment. A full inspection of 167 career recruitments since 2013 found a total of 662 violations of regulations. The Central Election Commission also confirmed 216 cases of violations of rules and procedures in 124 career recruitments conducted from 2013 to 2023.
Key officials at the election commissions were investigated for requesting the hiring of their children at regional election commissions. Some admitted the facts only after reports of preferential hiring suspicions surfaced, despite having approved the transfer of their children who passed career recruitment without notifying the Central Election Commission.
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