Nomination Approval for Lee Jong-seok as Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Passed in National Assembly Plenary Session

Approval with 204 Votes 'Passed'... Judicial Vacancy Resolved After 3 Weeks
Ruling Party Changes Policy from 'No Attendance at Plenary Session' to Participation Only in Voting

The nomination consent bill for Lee Jong-seok as Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court passed the National Assembly on the 30th.

On the same day, the ruling and opposition parties held a plenary session and put the nomination consent bill to a vote, resulting in 204 votes in favor, 61 against, and 26 abstentions out of a total of 291 votes, thus passing the bill.

On the 30th, the National Assembly plenary session passed the appointment consent bill for Lee Jong-seok as Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court with 204 votes in favor, 61 against, and 26 abstentions out of a total of 291 votes. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

With this, the vacancy in the Chief Justice position of the Constitutional Court, which had been vacant for three weeks since former Chief Justice Yoo Nam-seok retired on the 10th, has been resolved.

The People Power Party protested that the Democratic Party had pushed to convene the plenary session unilaterally without agreeing on the agenda and held a sit-in protest in front of the plenary hall condemning Speaker Kim Jin-pyo and the Democratic Party. Due to this, the party initially planned to abstain from the plenary session but participated in the vote on the nomination consent bill for candidate Lee Jong-seok.

Earlier, the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Personnel Hearings held a full meeting on the 28th and adopted a personnel hearing report that included both favorable and unfavorable opinions on the candidate. Candidate Lee, a Constitutional Court justice, was nominated as the Chief Justice candidate by President Yoon Seok-youl on the 18th of last month. With the passage of the nomination consent bill on this day, only the presidential appointment procedure remains.

Born in 1961 in Chilgok, Gyeongbuk, candidate Lee was nominated in October 2018 as a recommendation from the Liberty Korea Party (the predecessor of the People Power Party). It is known that he and President Yoon were classmates in the 1979 class of Seoul National University Law School.

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