--- title: "South Korea’s Chief Justice Said No, and the Ruling Party Smells a Crime" description: "Democrats claim Cho Hee-dae rejected a renomination in a rage, against his own administration’s advice" author: "Nate Ledger" published: 2026-09-27T08:56:06.935Z modified: 2026-09-27T21:13:42Z url: https://rews.cc/a/south-korea-s-chief-justice-said-no-and-the-ruling-party-sme-3d9588 language: en tags: ["law", "politics", "supreme-court", "judiciary", "impeachment", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # South Korea’s Chief Justice Said No, and the Ruling Party Smells a Crime *Democrats claim Cho Hee-dae rejected a renomination in a rage, against his own administration’s advice* By Nate Ledger · September 27, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/south-korea-s-chief-justice-said-no-and-the-ruling-party-sme-3d9588 ## In brief - Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae formally refused the Blue House’s request to renominate a Supreme Court candidate, Sohn Bong-gi - Democrats claim the Court Administration recommended renomination but Cho angrily overrode it, possibly criminal abuse of power - The party demands Cho testify; questioning is set for the Judiciary Committee on the 28th, with a Supreme Court audit on October 6 - A bill to abolish the Court Administration is seen as urgent by the ruling party, though undecided in timing - The opposition argues the renomination demand itself infringes judicial independence; impeachment has been floated The mechanism at the centre of South Korea’s current constitutional row is a two-step pipeline for filling the Supreme Court: the chief justice nominates a candidate for each seat, and the president appoints. So a vacancy requires both men to cooperate, and right now they are not cooperating. On August 28, the Blue House rejected Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae’s nomination of Sohn Bong-gi, a chief judge at the Daegu District Court, and asked him to nominate someone else. Twenty-five days later, Cho formally refused. The request, he argued in a statement, listed no specific reasons and no constitutional grounds, and he noted that a president’s official acts are carried out through documents countersigned by the prime minister and the relevant minister, per [Edaily’s account of the standoff](https://edaily.co.kr/News/Read?mediaCodeNo=257&newsId=01958166645583072). The Blue House responded that his refusal *neutralises the presidential appointment power* and is itself [unconstitutional](https://www.chosun.com/national/court_law/2026/09/22/FXF2B6W3XNDSZHEYKD7TZXH2EA/). That was already a genuine crisis — two branches of government each claiming the other has violated the constitution over a single judgeship. On Sunday, the ruling Democratic Party escalated it into something closer to a criminal matter. At a National Assembly press conference, party spokesperson Lee Yong-woo laid out what the party claims happened inside the Supreme Court before Cho’s refusal: the National Court Administration, the court’s own administrative arm, reviewed the request and concluded that a fresh nomination *should* be made. Its chief reported that conclusion to Cho. Cho, per the account, flew into a rage and ordered the position rewritten as a refusal, on the grounds that the original nomination remained valid. “If this is true,” Lee said, it could constitute abuse of power under the criminal code — a grave matter in which, the party’s language has it, an “imperial chief justice” committed a personnel abuse and demanded a change in constitutional interpretation through “unprecedented fury.” The spokesperson added two corroborating details: the Court Administration chief reportedly confided that it was the first time he had ever seen Cho that angry, and the Supreme Court justices themselves, who had been operating on the assumption that a renomination was the obvious course, were reportedly caught off guard by the decision. Chosun Ilbo reported the party’s claims at length; the party stressed the account is grounded enough that it should be tested in questioning. The demand that followed was theatrical but precisely aimed: Cho should stop hiding — “cowardly” — behind the Court Administration chief and appear before the National Assembly himself. Urgent questioning is scheduled at the Legislation and Judiciary Committee on the 28th, and the party plans to raise the renomination refusal, along with allegations about Cho’s use of a discretionary expenses budget, at the parliamentary audit of the Supreme Court on October 6. Policy chief Kwon Chil-seung also confirmed that legislation to abolish the Court Administration — a long-discussed reform that would strip the chief justice of his administrative arm — is considered urgent, though no timing has been decided. “Abolishing the Court Administration is something that’s been talked about for a considerable time,” he said. ## Whose constitution is it It is worth being clear about what each side is accusing the other of, because both accusations are constitution-shaped. The Blue House and the Democratic Party say a president who cannot get a new candidate nominated has effectively lost the appointment power — the chief justice’s nomination prerogative has swollen into a veto over a co-equal branch. The opposition People Power Party sees the mirror image: a president who can return a nomination he dislikes, again and again, has effectively captured the nomination power, and refusing is simply what judicial independence looks like in practice. Earlier reporting noted the ruling side has [floated impeachment](https://www.chosun.com/national/court_law/2026/09/24/WYGUMHNYWFGJDK4IKEMEGBF2SQ/), while one opposition suggestion was to leave the seat empty. There is a quieter institutional point buried in Sunday’s claims. If the Court Administration really did recommend compliance and was overruled in anger, then the administration’s long-running argument — that the chief justice’s personal control over court administration is too concentrated — got a vivid demonstration. That is presumably why the party keeps repeating that the episode proves the need for an administrative body independent of the chief justice. You do not need to decide who is right about the constitution to notice that the machinery being fought over is the machinery that decides what gets to the constitution next. Everyone here agrees the constitution is being trampled. They disagree mainly about whose copy of it is on the floor.