Cho Hee-yeon Side "Special Hiring of Dismissed Teachers is Legal"... Fully Denies Charges in First Trial

'Gongsucheo 1st Investigation' Case First Pretrial Hearing
All Charges Denied... Claiming 'Not Guilty'

Cho Hee-yeon, Superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education / Photo by Jin-hyung Kang aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] Cho Hee-yeon, Superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, who was indicted on charges of 'unfair special recruitment of dismissed teachers,' denied the charges at the first trial.

On the morning of the 9th, Cho's defense attorney stated at the first trial held at the Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 25-2 (Presiding Judges Park Jeong-je, Park Sa-rang, Kwon Seong-su) on charges including abuse of authority to obstruct the exercise of rights and violation of the National Public Service Act, "We deny all the charges and claim innocence." Since the trial was held as a preparatory hearing, and the defendant was not obligated to appear, Superintendent Cho did not attend the court.

The defense attorney said, "The basic argument is that the recruitment itself was lawful and valid," and added that specific opinions would be disclosed after reviewing the records and legal principles. The court decided to proceed with procedures such as evidence submission at the second preparatory hearing scheduled for the 11th of next month.

Earlier, Superintendent Cho was brought to trial on charges of abuse of authority to obstruct the exercise of rights for unfairly allowing the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to specially recruit five dismissed teachers, including those from the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (Jeon-gyo-jo), between October and December 2018. Former Chief Secretary Han, who was in charge of the practical work at the time, was also indicted as an accomplice.

The prosecution believes that despite opposition from intermediate approvers, Superintendent Cho unilaterally approved documents related to the special recruitment, thereby obstructing the exercise of intermediate approval rights by the responsible officials. They also judged that Han colluded with Superintendent Cho to unfairly select screening committee members and improperly interfered in the overall practical work.

This case was transferred from the police to the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) in May last year, marking the first investigation case since the CIO's establishment. After about four months of investigation, the CIO forwarded the case to the prosecution in September last year with a recommendation for indictment. The prosecution reached the same conclusion as the CIO on December 24 last year and indicted Superintendent Cho without detention.

Under the current CIO Act, the CIO does not have the authority to prosecute. If the CIO decides that prosecution is necessary for a case it has investigated, it sends the case-related documents and evidence to a prosecutor belonging to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, which has jurisdiction, and the prosecutor reviewing the case must notify the CIO Chief whether to file charges.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Cho stated at the end of last year, "(The) selection as the first case by the CIO itself was inappropriate. The prosecution dismissed a significant portion of the abuse of authority charges from the Board of Audit and Inspection and the CIO," and added, "This was done out of an educational responsibility to return teachers who suffered from dismissal back to the children."

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