NEC Official's Child at Center of "Dad Chance" Controversy Wins Back Appointment... Court Finds No Evidence of Honest Scoring Fraud

Daughter of Former NEC Secretary General Park Chanjin Wins Lawsuit

Passed 2022 Recruitment; Appointment Revoked Last Year

The Seoul Administrative Court has ruled that the National Election Commission’s decision to cancel the appointment of the daughter of former Secretary General Chanjin Park—who was at the center of preferential hiring allegations—was illegal.

According to Yonhap News Agency and the legal community on September 20, the 12th administrative division of the Seoul Administrative Court (presided over by Chief Judge Kang Jae-won) ruled in favor of Ms. Park, daughter of the former Secretary General, in a lawsuit she filed against the National Election Commission seeking to overturn the cancellation of her appointment, delivering the verdict in her favor on the 10th of this month.

On October 5, 2022, Chanjin Park, Secretary General of the National Election Commission, attended the National Assembly hearing on the National Election Commission and delivered a greeting.

Ms. Park was hired as a Grade 9 official in 2022 after passing the experienced-hire recruitment for the Jeollanam-do Election Commission and was promoted to Grade 7 in 2024. However, in April last year, her appointment was canceled.

As the public uproar intensified in 2023 over suspicions of preferential hiring involving children of high-ranking NEC officials, former Secretary General Park voluntarily resigned and was subject to a prosecution search and seizure in October of the same year. He was also investigated by the Board of Audit and Inspection over allegations he used his influence—so-called “Daddy Chance”—to help his daughter pass the recruitment process.

In February last year, the Board of Audit and Inspection announced that there had been manipulation of interview scores in the experienced-hire recruitment process in which Ms. Park participated. According to the audit report, the interviewers left the score fields blank and signed only in the signature section, then submitted only the ranking of the six selected candidates to clerical staff. The clerical staff marked those six as “pass” and arbitrarily filled out the score fields. The clerk was also found to have distributed in advance a chart listing information about applicants, including which candidates were over age 35.

In its statement on the cancellation of Ms. Park’s appointment, the NEC stated that her father, former Secretary General Park, had authority over personnel affairs and recruitment as the Deputy Secretary General at the time, and was in a position to exercise indirect influence. The NEC also cited the fact that Mr. Park personally approved his daughter’s transfer in 2022 (“self-approval”), as well as the inappropriate extension of the application deadline, reflecting these circumstances in its decision.

Ms. Park filed a lawsuit in August last year contesting the NEC’s decision to cancel her appointment. The court sided with Ms. Park, pointing out that the submitted audit report alone was insufficient to recognize the grounds for the cancellation.

The court acknowledged that there were irregular administrative procedures, such as interviewers being able to see applicants' ages in advance and the successful candidates, including Ms. Park, not being separately marked on the chart. However, the court stated, "There is no evidence to suggest that there was any dishonest or falsified grading or reporting." The court further found no evidence that former Secretary General Park exercised influence over the appointment process, nor that he directly or indirectly instructed clerical staff or evaluators to engage in improper conduct or interfere with their work.

The court concluded, "Even if all of the defendant’s claims of irregular administrative conduct are true, it is difficult to recognize a legitimate public interest strong enough to justify singling out the cancellation of the plaintiff’s appointment. The ambiguous public interest based on suspicions of misconduct is not compelling enough to justify the disadvantages suffered by the plaintiff."

Earlier, in July this year, the court also ruled in favor of the child of a standing NEC commissioner who had challenged the cancellation of their appointment. At that time, the court found the cancellation unlawful, noting there was no evidence to prove that the father had improperly influenced the recruitment process.

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