Democratic Party: "Cho Hee-dae Should Re-nominate from Existing Supreme Court Candidates"...People Power Party: "The Beginning of Dictatorship"

On September 12, the ruling and opposition parties expressed differing reactions to the Blue House's position urging Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Cho Hee-dae to promptly proceed with the re-nomination of Supreme Court justice candidates.

Chief Justice Hee-dae Cho. Photo by Yonhap News

Jeon Eun-su, floor spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Korea, stated in a written briefing on the same day, "The Chief Justice should promptly carry out the re-nomination process among the candidates already recommended by the Supreme Court Justice Candidate Recommendation Committee," adding, "The prolonged vacancy of Supreme Court justices due to delays with the nomination authority must end."

Spokesperson Jeon further commented, "If the committee is reconstituted to start the candidate pool from scratch, leaving aside those already recommended, it will be criticized as yet another maneuver to delay the Supreme Court appointments."

She also stated, "Unless the intention is to recklessly overwrite existing recommendations by reforming the committee and changing the process, there is no reason to further postpone the re-nomination."

Spokesperson Jeon said, "Ultimately, it is the people who suffer from the prolonged vacancy of Supreme Court justices," emphasizing, "Providing swift and fair trials to the public is a constitutional duty that the judiciary must uphold."

Jang Dong-hyuk, leader of the People Power Party, wrote in a Facebook post on the same day, "The Blue House's call to 'respect the recommendation committee' essentially means nominating Min-gi Kim (a judge and one of the committee-recommended candidates) as a Supreme Court justice," adding, "Their aim is to appoint Min-gi Kim as a justice to ensure an acquittal for Lee Jae-myung at all costs."

Jang continued, "President Lee Jae-myung said, 'Appointed power must respect the elected power,' but this denies the separation of powers," and criticized, "This is the beginning of dictatorship. Even Hitler justified the Nazi dictatorship in the name of 'elected power.'" He added, "What the Supreme Court must do now is none other than to resume the trial for Lee Jae-myung."

Chief spokesperson Park Sung-hoon stated, "President Lee must first abandon his arrogance that even the judiciary can be commanded by the head of state," and insisted, "Put an immediate stop to the ambition to control the judiciary by selecting Supreme Court justices to your personal preference."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.