Cho Kuk, head of the Rebuilding Korea Party's Innovation Policy Institute, sharply criticized Supreme Court Chief Justice Jo Hee-de's refusal to renominate a Supreme Court justice candidate, calling it "an arrogant political act by legal elites."
In a post on his Facebook page on the 22nd, Cho said, "Chief Justice Jo is standing at the forefront of the politicization of the judiciary and is seriously undermining judicial independence." He added, "This amounts to claiming that the chief justice's power of nomination stands above the appointment power of a president elected by the people — a grave misunderstanding that violates the Constitution."
Citing Article 104, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution, which states that Supreme Court justices are appointed by the president on the nomination of the chief justice and with the consent of the National Assembly, Cho argued, "The subject of that clause is the president, and the final act is the appointment. Nomination is a preliminary procedure for the president's constitutional act of appointment, not an independent power of decision in itself."
He continued, "The chief justice is a power holder not directly elected by the people, whereas the president's appointment power is a constitutional authority directly entrusted by the people." He said the power of nomination is "a right of consultative participation granted to the judiciary to check arbitrary personnel choices by the president, not a veto that allows the head of the judiciary to personally block the final appointment authority of a power elected by the people."
Cho also noted, "Chief Justice Jo, who handled the case of then-presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung — the front-runner in last year's presidential election — just nine days after referring it to the full bench, has now been dragging his feet for 25 days since the presidential office requested a renomination and more than six months since former Justice Roh Tae-ak left office." He said, "The National Court Administration is propping up an imperial chief justice and engaging in political acts."
He added, "This issue began in the first place with a unilateral written notification from the chief justice." He said, "For the chief justice, who was the first to damage procedural legitimacy, to now point out that there is no procedural basis in the renomination request document is a double-standard reading of the Constitution."
Cho argued, "We are seeing repeated confirmation of the arrogance of legal elites who refuse to accept Lee Jae-myung," and called for "institutional reform to eliminate the harms of the imperial chief justice as soon as possible."
Meanwhile, Chief Justice Jo pushed back the same day against President Lee Jae-myung's request to renominate a Supreme Court justice candidate, saying he "cannot comply." The response came 25 days after President Lee returned Jo's nomination of Senior Judge Son Bong-gi. The Supreme Court said of its rejection of the president's renomination request that it "could not find specific constitutional grounds or reasons to justify a renomination request."
