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| Supreme Court Chief Justice Kim Myung-soo answers questions from the press on his way to work Wednesday. Yonhap |
By Kim Hyun-bin
A recommendation committee started personnel screenings at the Supreme Court, Wednesday, to select three Supreme Court justices to replace judges Ko Young-han, Kim Chang-seok and Kim Shin whose terms end Aug. 1.
The committee will select nine candidates from a pool of 41, mostly long-term members of the judicial branch with up to 30 years of experience. The candidates are 33 judges, six lawyers and two professors.
However, criticism is rising as out of the 41, 30 graduated from Seoul National University and 36 are male.
The union for court employees expressed its opposition to the selection, demanding the removal of high-ranking judges who worked under former Supreme Court chief justice Yang Seung-tae, currently being accused of abusing his authority.
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"High-ranking judges who took part in administrative work under former chief justice Yang Seung-tae are also subject to investigation for judicial abuse and should be excluded as candidates," the union said.
It demanded the removal of candidates connected to the allegations against Yang as well as prosecutors who opposed an investigation of him.
"The candidates are responsible for bureaucratizing the judicial system and were solely focused on increasing their power. They have no right to serve as Supreme Court justices in a democracy," the union said.
Yang, who served under ousted President Park Geun-hye, allegedly ensured biased Supreme Court decisions, and supposedly created a blacklist of mostly liberal judges. Yang is accused of deliberately using politically sensitive trials as bargaining chips to curry favor with the Park administration in a bid to establish a de facto second Supreme Court.
The trials involved unions and a former spy chief, the verdicts of which could have affected the Park administration.
After the committee finalizes the nine candidates it will submit the names to chief justice Kim Myung-soo. The union will also offer an opinion on each candidate.
Kim will select three and submit them to President Moon Jae-in for final approval.
