President Lee Jae-myung responded to recent remarks by Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae regarding judicial independence, stating, "We need to consider why we grant independence to national institutions."
During a press conference at the Blue House on September 18, President Lee addressed questions from reporters about Chief Justice Cho's comments amid ongoing tensions over the nomination of Supreme Court justices.
On September 17, Chief Justice Cho, in his opening remarks at the Asia-Pacific Chief Justices Conference, emphasized that "cooperation among the judiciary, legislature, and executive must occur while ensuring the independence of the judiciary," seemingly targeting the Blue House amid the current conflict over justice nominations.
Previously, the Blue House rejected Chief Justice Cho's nomination of Song Bong-ki, a senior judge at the Daegu District Court, to succeed former Justice Noh Tae-auk. Following this, the Supreme Court's Justice Candidate Recommendation Committee requested that the Blue House consider three other candidates recommended in January: Kim Min-ki, Park Soon-young, and Yoon Seong-sik, all judges at the Seoul High Court.
As Chief Justice Cho has been contemplating his position, he has yet to respond to the nomination request, citing personal reasons, including a recent bereavement and the Asia-Pacific Chief Justices Conference.
Some legal experts speculate that the Supreme Court may need to reconstitute the recommendation committee under the current court organization law, starting the nomination process from scratch. However, this could lead to several months of conflict with the Blue House, as the process from nomination to the National Assembly's confirmation hearing typically takes a significant amount of time.
In fact, when then-Supreme Court nominee Kim Byeong-hwa resigned amid various allegations in July 2012, the Supreme Court had to form a new recommendation committee, and it took three months for the National Assembly to pass the appointment consent motion.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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