Up until several days ago, there had been no assurance that when Lee Yong-hoon retires as chief justice of the Supreme Court on Saturday, his successor would assume his duties without interruption. The presidential nominee for the top court post had been left in limbo, with the rival parties at loggerheads over a vote on his selection.
It was assumed, based on past experience, that the main opposition party would attempt to disrupt or boycott the vote the National Assembly had scheduled for Wednesday at the request of the ruling Grand National Party. The opposition party was holding on to its demand that the vote on Chief Justice-nominee Yang Sung-tae be linked to a vote on its nominee for the post of Constitutional Court justice, Cho Yong-whan. But the ruling party said it was opposed to the opposition’s selection, claiming that Cho was severely biased in favor of North Korea.
However, Rep. Sohn Hak-kyu, chairman of the opposition party, took the plunge on Wednesday morning and instructed his party’s lawmakers not just to participate in the vote but to approve Yang, a former Supreme Court justice, as the next chief justice. Rep. Sohn said he took the action without any strings attached. Instead, he said that, by doing so, he was taking the initiative for promoting bipartisanship and restoring party politics that was being discredited in the eyes of the electorate.
Yang’s nomination was approved by a vote of 227 to 17 with one abstention. But it has yet to be seen whether or not the ruling party will return the opposition’s favor by taking a similar action when Cho’s nomination is put to a vote. Its leadership still has reservations about Cho, who had turned the conservative ruling party against him when he made remarks on North Korea’s 2010 torpedoing of a South Korean warship.
During his confirmation hearing, he said he believed North Korea sank a South Korean warship because the South Korean government made a public announcement to that effect. But he said he had an aversion to expressing an unwavering conviction because he did not bear witness to it.
The ruling party, citing those remarks as a reason, called his loyalty to the nation into question and vowed to keep him from sitting on the bench. It said it would allow its lawmakers to vote freely, instead of ordering them to vote for Cho ― a tactic of virtually ensuring that his nomination be rejected.
But the opposition party turned the tables when its lawmakers voted for Yang without any preconditions. Now the ruling party is under mounting pressure to follow suit. It has much soul searching to do before making a final decision.
True, it will face substantial resistance from conservative voters if it changes course and decides to vote for him. Many of them suspect Cho is too progressive and too sympathetic to North Korean communists.
But the alternative may prove to be even more painful to the ruling party. If it decides to stay the course, it will expose itself to the risk of being perceived to have tunnel vision by not just liberals but also centrists, who are growing in number. While abandoning party politics, more centrists are supporting independents, such as progressive activist Park Won-soon and conservative activist Lee Seog-yeon who are running in the Oct. 26 Seoul mayoral by-election.
Moreover, Cho, if allowed to sit on the bench, would not have too much influence in adjudicating constitutionality cases because he would be only one of the nine justices in the Constitutional Court, with its president being one of them. The court has a built-in system of checks and balances, too, with the each of the three branches of government authorized to recommend those trained in the legal profession to fill three vacancies in the justice posts. Cho is one of the three allotted to the National Assembly, with the other two given to the ruling party.
The ruling party will do well to grab the opportunity to rejuvenate party politics based on bipartisan compromises by returning the opposition party’s favor. Moreover, it is not right to leave the post vacant for as long as 80 days.
