The latest selection of Kim So-young, a woman appellate court judge, as a Supreme Court justice nominee marks a fresh turn in the court’s nomination process. It should be welcomed on at least two counts.
If approved by the legislature, her selection will mark an end to a long-held, misguided practice of keeping one prosecutor-turned justice on the court’s 14-member bench. It will also contribute to promoting diversity in the male-dominated bench. She will become the nation’s fourth woman justice if she wins approval from the National Assembly ―- a grim reminder of the judiciary’s glass ceiling.
Kim’s nomination followed an earlier decision by a former senior prosecutor to withdraw his selection as a justice nominee under mounting public pressure. He was suspected of breaking the law and ethically questionable behavior.
His withdrawal paved the way for Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae to pick Kim as a nominee. Yang did not allow the justice minister to continue the practice of recommending a former prosecutor as a nominee when a prosecutor-turned justice completes his term in office ― a practice that continued since 1964, three years after Army Gen. Park Chung-hee took power in a military coup.
The military-backed dictator started this practice as one of his devices of controlling the judiciary. As such, it should have been abandoned when democracy was restored in the mid-1980s.
This is not to say that no prosecutor-turned lawyer should be allowed to sit on the Supreme Court’s bench. A former prosecutor can be selected as a justice nominee if his legal expertise is deemed needed for adjudication by the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Yang, however, decided no such expertise was needed this time when he picked Kim as the nominee. By doing so, he reportedly ignored an attempt by the justice minister to recommend a nominee.
True, the claim by the prosecution that appointing a former prosecutor to the post of justice will contribute to promoting diversity in a bench dominated by former lower court judges is not entirely misplaced. But such a person must be selected not by the justice minister but by the chief justice.
When he selected Kim as a nominee, the chief justice was apparently responding to a public demand on the Supreme Court to promote diversity and better protect the rights of women as members of a minority group in society and other minorities. Still, the Supreme Court has a long way to go in this regard, given that it has only one woman on its bench now.
