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 National Election Commission (NEC) canceled the appointment of the daughter of former Secretary General Chanjin Park, who was at the center of a preferential hiring controversy, but the court has ruled that this decision was unlawful.

According to Yonhap News Agency and the legal community on September 20, the 12th Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Kang Jae-won) ruled in favor of Ms. Park, the daughter of the former Secretary General, on September 10 in her lawsuit seeking to overturn the NEC’s appointment cancellation.

On October 5, 2022, Chanjin Park, Secretary General of the National Election Commission, appeared at the National Assembly for the National Election Commission's audit and gave a greeting.

Ms. Park had passed the NEC’s experienced employee recruitment exam in Jeonnam in 2022 and was appointed as a Level 9 civil servant. She was later promoted to Level 7 in 2024 but had her appointment revoked in April of the previous year.

In 2023, suspicions of preferential hiring of high-ranking NEC executives’ children caused significant social backlash. Subsequently, former Secretary General Park voluntarily resigned and, in October of that year, the prosecution conducted a search and seizure. He was also audited by the Board of Audit and Inspection over allegations that he exercised influence to help his daughter pass the recruitment, so-called "dad chance."

In February of the previous year, the Board of Audit and Inspection announced that there had been manipulation of interview scores in the recruitment process that Ms. Park applied for. According to the audit report, interviewers only signed the signature field while leaving the grading section blank and submitted only the rankings of six successful applicants to administrative staff. The staff member then arbitrarily filled in the scores for these six candidates. It was also revealed that the administrative staff had distributed status tables containing information such as applicants aged over 35 to the interviewers in advance.

In its appointment cancellation notice for Ms. Park, the NEC stated that her father, then Deputy Secretary General, held hiring authority at the time and was in a position to indirectly exert influence over personnel matters. It also cited his approval of his daughter’s 2022 department transfer by "self-approval" and the unjust extension of the application period as factors contributing to the decision.

Ms. Park filed a lawsuit in August of the previous year challenging the NEC’s cancellation. The court sided with Ms. Park, pointing out that the audit report submitted as evidence was insufficient to support the grounds for her dismissal.

The court acknowledged that there had been unusual administrative practices, such as interviewers being able to access candidates’ ages in advance and individuals like Ms. Park, whose information was not specially marked, passing the interview. However, the court stated, "There is no evidence of false or dishonest scoring or reporting." The court further ruled there was no proof that Park, as her father, exercised undue influence on the hiring process or directly or indirectly instructed administrative staff or evaluators to commit wrongdoing.

The court concluded, "Even if all of the unusual administrative actions argued by the defendant are acknowledged, it is difficult to recognize a compelling public interest that justifies canceling only the plaintiff's appointment." The ruling continued, "The vague public interest invoked due to suspicions of wrongdoing is not strong enough to justify the disadvantage to the plaintiff."

Previously, in July, the court also ruled in favor of another NEC Standing Commissioner’s child in a similar lawsuit challenging appointment cancellation. At the time, the court judged the NEC’s cancellation decision to be unlawful, citing the lack of evidence that the father had exercised undue influence during the hiring process.

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