PCC Chief Recommendation Committee Selects Lee Geon-ri and Kim Jin-wook as Final Candidates... Opposition Party Abstains from Vote

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] The High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Agency (HCIA) Chief Candidate Recommendation Committee on the 28th selected Lee Geon-ri, Vice Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Division of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, and Kim Jin-wook, Senior Researcher at the Constitutional Court, as the final candidates.

The recommendation committee held its 6th meeting in the afternoon at the National Assembly and passed the resolution accordingly. Of the seven total committee members, five participated in the vote, excluding the opposition party members.

All of these candidates were recommended by the Korean Bar Association. Vice Chairman Lee graduated from Jeonju High School and Seoul National University School of Law, then completed graduate studies at Yonsei University Law School. He has served in various roles for 24 years, including prosecutor, chief prosecutor, deputy chief prosecutor, and chief prosecutor. After opening his law practice, he served as chairman of the Ministry of National Defense's 5·18 Democratization Movement Special Committee and is currently serving as Vice Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Division of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission.

Judge-turned researcher Kim graduated from Boseong High School and Seoul National University with a degree in Archaeology, earned a master's degree from Seoul National University Graduate School of Law, and completed an LLM program at Harvard Law School in the United States. After passing the 1989 judicial examination, he served as a legal officer in the Air Force and worked as a judge at the Northern Branch of the Seoul District Court and the Seoul District Court. In 2010, he was appointed as a constitutional researcher at the Constitutional Court, served as secretary to the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, and currently holds concurrent positions as Senior Constitutional Researcher and International Deliberation Officer.

Opposition party recommendation committee members Lawyer Lee Heon and Professor Han Seok-hoon of Sungkyunkwan University School of Law did not participate in the voting process and left the meeting. Lawyer Lee told reporters upon leaving the meeting, "The meeting was held without veto rights, and newly recommended member Han Seok-hoon proposed recommending candidates and raised various issues for review, but other recommendation members insisted on pushing forward with the vote," adding, "So I decided not to participate and left."

Regarding this, the recommendation committee explained, "Member Han Seok-hoon claimed the authority to propose additional candidates and request materials for review, but since additional recommendations were only allowed until 6 p.m. on the 23rd as decided in the previous meeting, this claim was not accepted."

With the final two candidates confirmed on this day, only President Moon Jae-in's nomination process (one candidate) and the National Assembly's confirmation hearing remain before the HCIA's launch. The Democratic Party of Korea plans to hold the confirmation hearing and finalize the first HCIA chief as soon as President Moon's nomination process is completed.

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