[단독]Sewol Special Assistance Committee, Lee Seok-tae, referee for impeachment… Lim Seong-geun, application to avoid

Im Seong-geun, head judge of the Busan High Court, who was impeached for the first time in the history of the constitution, filed a challenge against the judge of the Constitutional Court, Lee Seok-tae (68, 14th Judicial Research and Training Institute), who served as the head judge before the impeachment trial.

On the afternoon of the 23rd, the delegation of Deputy Chief Judge Lim announced that it had submitted an application to evade Lee to the Constitution. The main reason for the refusal is the judgment that it is difficult to make a fair judgment on whether to intervene in the trial of the Sewol ferry, which was suggested as the main basis for the impeachment of Judge Im, as Lee served as the chairman of the Sewol special investigation committee in the past.

Judge Lee Seok-tae, when he was chairman of the Special Assistance Committee for the Sewol ferry disaster in 2015 and 16, argued for external pressure from the government and fought a hunger strike with tent formation. Regarding this, the delegates said, “This judge was directly related to the Sewol ferry case, and as the chairman of the special task force at the time, he also publicly expressed his position on finding out the truth, and it was judged as a reason for avoidance.”

Earlier, Deputy Judge Im was convicted of intervening in the trial of former president Tatsuya Kato, former head of the Seoul Bureau of the Sankei Shimbun, who raised suspicions on the day of the Sewol ferry disaster and related scandals of former President Park, and was acquitted at the first trial. Therefore, an impeachment trial was filed.

Judge Lim’s side made it one of the reasons for the refusal that Judge Lee served as the chairman of the lawyers’ meeting for democratic society from 2004 to 2006. On the 5th, when the impeachment prosecution by Judge Lim was decided at the National Assembly on the 5th, Minbyun said, “An important step has been taken to confirm the importance of independence of the trial and to cut the ties between power and the trial.”

There was also a concern that it could affect the judgment of the’intervention in the arrest of Minbyun lawyer’, one of the reasons for the impeachment prosecution. Four lawyers by Minbyun clashed with the police at a rally calling for a resolution of the Ssangyong Motor crisis in July 2013 and were handed over to trial. During the hearing of the case, Judge Lim was handed over to the trial on charges of correcting the reasons for the sentence and deleting some of the sentences, and was acquitted at the first trial.

Referee Lee Seok-tae is only one in nine judges to conclude the impeachment. The authority to open the pleadings or decide the place of pleadings is held by the president of the Constitutional Justice Yoo Nam-seok, the judge. However, the judge of the referee has the initiative in the proceedings of the trial or in the process of interrogation. Other judges may ask for clarification on areas they are curious about.

Lee was appointed as the judge in September 2018 under the appointment of Chief Justice Kim Myung-soo. In 2003, he worked with President Moon Jae-in in the Chief Civil Service Office of the Blue House. For this reason, the legal profession sometimes evaluates this judge as having a’progressive color’.

Reporter Dr. Ra and Lee Soo-jung [email protected]