'Dismissed Teacher Preferential Hiring' Cho Hee-yeon Appears at First Trial, Claims "Not Guilty"

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

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

At 10 a.m. on the 15th, the Criminal Division 25-2 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judges Park Jeong-je, Park Sa-rang, Park Jeong-gil) held the first trial of Superintendent Cho, who was indicted on charges including abuse of authority, obstruction of the exercise of rights, and violation of the National Public Service Act.

Superintendent Cho appeared in court in person in accordance with the defendant's obligation to attend the formal trial. He reiterated his previous claim of 'not guilty,' stating that "the recruitment itself was lawful and valid."

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

The prosecution believes that Superintendent Cho unilaterally approved documents related to the special recruitment despite opposition from intermediate approvers, thereby obstructing the exercise of 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 High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Division (Gong-su-cheo) in May last year and marked the first investigation case after the establishment of Gong-su-cheo. After about four months of investigation, Gong-su-cheo forwarded the case to the prosecution with a recommendation for indictment in September last year. The prosecution reached the same conclusion as Gong-su-cheo and indicted Superintendent Cho without detention on December 24 last year.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Cho expressed his intention to run for a 'third term' at a press conference held at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education the day before. He said, "I have no other path. There have even been remarks from ministerial candidates about reversing the autonomous private high school (jasago) policy," adding, "I believe the task of preserving the existing path of educational innovation remains."

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