Choo Mi-ae Expresses Discontent Over Court Ruling in Yoon Seok-yeol Case, Saying "Hard to Accept Court's Claims" on Facebook

Refutation of the Court's Decision on Disqualification 'Quorum' Determination

Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae is moving to attend the Cabinet meeting held at the Government Seoul Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 29th. Photo by Jang Jin-hyeong aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae expressed her stance that it is "hard to accept" the court's decision to suspend the execution of the '2-month suspension' disciplinary action against Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol.

On the afternoon of the 29th, Minister Choo posted on her Facebook, stating, "The court judged that the disciplinary committee's vote on recusals did not meet the quorum," and added, "It is hard to accept such a claim by the court."

She argued, "Article 17, Paragraph 4 of the Prosecutor Disciplinary Act distinguishes between quorum for attendance and quorum for resolution. The committee decides on recusals, i.e., requests to exclude a disciplinary suspect from disciplinary review, by a majority of the committee members present (quorum for resolution) with more than half of the total members attending (quorum for attendance). The person subject to the recusal request is only barred from participating in the 'resolution' but is included in the 'quorum for attendance' necessary for starting and conducting the meeting if they attend."

She continued, "At the first review session (December 10, 2020), there were seven 'registered members' of the disciplinary committee, five of whom attended. Although there were recusal requests for each member due to common or individual reasons, they are included among the attendees for the reasons mentioned above," and added, "The attendance of five out of seven registered members satisfies the 'quorum for attendance' required for recusal decisions under Article 17, Paragraph 4 of the Prosecutor Disciplinary Act."

She further stated, "This was also the case at the second review session (December 15, 2020)," emphasizing, "Therefore, the committee's procedure for dismissing recusal requests was lawful."

Minister Choo also said, "Common sense dictates that if a member who is subject to a recusal request is not recognized as an attendee solely because of the recusal request, indiscriminate recusal requests would make it impossible to proceed with any disciplinary committee meetings," and added, "This seems to be a significant misunderstanding by the court, according to the opinions of the litigation representatives and many legal experts."

At the end of her post, Minister Choo wrote, "Please refer to the details below," attaching eight photos of documents that appear to have been provided to the Ministry of Justice to assist the litigation representatives in deciding whether to appeal the court's suspension order.

She concluded by asking, "What is your judgment?"

In the opinion letter attached by Minister Choo, the litigation representative argued, "The court's interpretation regarding the recusal decision is theoretically possible but is only 'one possible interpretation' and ultimately should be judged by the Supreme Court."

However, the litigation representative added, "Whether to appeal is closely related to whether the main trial will be maintained, and since the court has already made a legal judgment on procedural defects in the recusal decision, at this stage, the main trial must be seen as likely to accept the applicant's claim."

Since the court has already invalidated both the recusal decision and the disciplinary decision due to violations of quorum regulations under the Prosecutor Disciplinary Act when issuing the suspension order, it is interpreted that appealing the suspension order would have little practical benefit because the main lawsuit challenging the suspension is also likely to be lost for the same reason.

Earlier, the Seoul Administrative Court Administrative Division 12 (Presiding Judge Hong Soon-wook) issued a suspension order on the '2-month suspension' disciplinary action against Prosecutor General Yoon on the 24th.

At the two review sessions on the 10th and 16th, the disciplinary committee allowed members who were subject to recusal requests by Yoon's side to leave only during their own recusal votes but to participate alternately in other members' recusal votes. The court judged this violated Article 17, Paragraph 4 of the Prosecutor Disciplinary Act, which states that "a person subject to a recusal request may not participate in that resolution."

The court stated at the time, "Article 17, Paragraph 4 of the Prosecutor Disciplinary Act stipulates that 'when there is a recusal request, the committee shall decide on the recusal by a majority of the registered members attending and a majority of the attending members voting. In this case, the person subject to the recusal request may not participate in that resolution.' However, in this case, the disciplinary committee made recusal decisions with only three members after dismissing the members subject to the recusal requests," and concluded, "The recusal decisions on each recusal request by the applicant's lawyer lacked the quorum of a majority of registered members attending as required by Article 17, Paragraph 4 of the Prosecutor Disciplinary Act and are therefore invalid."

The court further judged, "The subsequent disciplinary decisions by the disciplinary committee were also invalid because they were made with the participation of members who should not have participated due to recusal requests, thus lacking quorum."

Additionally, the court rejected Minister Choo's claim that "members who were recused and left the meeting should be counted as attendees for quorum for attendance but excluded from quorum for resolution."

The Supreme Court ruling cited by Minister Choo, which concerned a provision in the former Commercial Act stating that "a person with a special interest in the resolution of the general meeting may not exercise voting rights," was deemed inappropriate to apply because the wording differs from the Prosecutor Disciplinary Act's provision stating that such persons "may not participate in the resolution," the court concluded.

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