-Nomination made without prior agreement is the center of controversy
-Blue House leans toward rejecting Son Bong-gi's nomination due to lack of agreement
-Supreme Court maintains position that Son Bong-gi was the only viable choice
-Why Son Bong-gi was the only one left: Recommendation committee originally recommended 4 candidates
-As time passed, reasons for disqualification arose for the other 3 candidates
-Blue House has wanted Senior Judge Kim Min-gi from start to finish
-Blue House and Supreme Court hold firm stances, running on parallel tracks
-Reason for opposing Kim Min-gi: Kim Min-gi's spouse is already a Constitutional Court Justice
-Prolonged vacancy of a Supreme Court Justice without nomination is unprecedented
-Supreme Court wished to reconvene committee to find new candidate both sides could agree on
■ Broadcast: SBS Kim Tae-hyun's Political Show (FM 103.5 MHz 7:00 – 9:00)
■ Date: August 21, 2026 (Fri)
■ Host: Attorney Kim Tae-hyun
■ Guest: SBS Legal Affairs Correspondent Lim Chan-jong
▷Kim Tae-hyun: A reporter's notebook covering Seocho-dong by a legal affairs journalist. "The Man Living with Law," or Beobsanam for short. We are joined by SBS Legal Affairs Correspondent Lim Chan-jong. Hello.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Hello.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Originally, how a Constitutional Court Justice or a Supreme Court Justice is appointed is not something the general public needs to know or finds useful in daily life, unless they work in the legal field or are law students. But at some point, these matters started dominating the news, making it impossible to ignore even if you wanted to. Because it has become a major issue. First, please explain how the Supreme Court Justice appointment process normally works.
▶Lim Chan-jong: As widely reported in the news, it is laid out in the Constitution. For a Supreme Court Justice, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court nominates a candidate—meaning they request the appointment of a specific person—and the President appoints that person with the consent of the National Assembly. In terms of procedure, the Chief Justice submits a nomination to the President recommending a specific person. Then, because the President must obtain parliamentary consent, the President submits a motion for appointment consent to the National Assembly. The National Assembly holds a confirmation hearing, and a plenary session vote determines whether consent is granted.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: If the National Assembly votes it down, the process ends there. But if the National Assembly consents, the President, having requested that consent, proceeds to make the appointment. That is the procedure.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: The issue now arises at the stage where the Chief Justice nominates a candidate. If the Chief Justice makes a nomination but the President refuses to appoint them, and this nomination-rejection cycle repeats, it enters a so-called infinite loop.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Like saying, "I don't like this person," until the desired candidate comes up.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Saying "nominate someone else." As I will explain shortly, such a situation seems likely to happen now. Therefore, because an infinite loop could theoretically occur under the Constitution, custom has dictated that since 1972—when the Chief Justice's power to nominate Supreme Court Justices was established—the Chief Justice and the President have virtually reached prior agreements, saying "if you nominate person X, I will appoint them," and handled everything smoothly.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: However, this time, the process went forward without an agreement. Whether a written nomination was made is beside the point. The core of the controversy is that, whereas in the past nominations were always made after reaching a prior consensus before the President submitted a consent motion and made the appointment, this nomination was made without prior agreement.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Authority was granted to the Chief Justice, the President, and the National Assembly by the constitutional power that established our Constitution.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Yes.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: In the spirit of the separation of powers, authority was distributed across the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive branch. Until now, whether behind the scenes or through friction, the President and the Chief Justice always consulted and decided on a candidate together.
▶Lim Chan-jong: That has been the case so far.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: So that no conflict or issues would arise. But this time, things broke down. The ball is now in the President's court. Despite the lack of consensus, Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae nominated Senior Judge Son Bong-gi. The President's options are to send the consent motion to the National Assembly or to return the nomination.
▶Lim Chan-jong: That is why there was news overnight. The Hankyoreh reported an exclusive yesterday evening, and the Blue House subsequently acknowledged that it is largely accurate. Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae nominated two individuals to be appointed as Supreme Court Justices: Senior Judge Son Bong-gi of the Daegu District Court and Senior Judge Kim Sung-soo of the Seoul High Court. Among them, there is little controversy over Senior Judge Kim Sung-soo of the Seoul High Court, as a de facto consensus had already been reached with the Blue House. The problematic part is the nomination of Senior Judge Son Bong-gi as successor to former Justice Noh Tae-ak, which was done without consensus. Reports emerged overnight stating that the Blue House is heavily considering returning only the nomination of Senior Judge Son Bong-gi without submitting a motion for appointment consent to the National Assembly, while accepting Kim Sung-soo. Some called this unprecedented, but as I will explain later if there is time, it is not entirely unprecedented; a similar case occurred under the Syngman Rhee administration.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: That was a very long time ago.
▶Lim Chan-jong: The Chief Justice's power to nominate Supreme Court Justices was established in 1972 under the Park Chung-hee administration. Under the Syngman Rhee administration, the Judges' Council nominated candidates for Chief Justice and Supreme Court Justices.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: The structure was somewhat similar.
▶Lim Chan-jong: While the Chief Justice does it now, back then the Judges' Council, comprising the Chief Justice and others, made the nominations. When the Judges' Council nominated someone as Supreme Court Justice in 1957, President Syngman Rhee rejected it and returned the nomination a few months later, around January 1958.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: So this is not the very first time in history, though it did happen back then. Explaining that entire history would take too long, so I will just note that such a precedent existed.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: For now, the Chief Justice has nomination authority.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Yes.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: And the President has appointment authority. Both hold their own constitutional powers. Right now, they have exercised their respective powers.
▶Lim Chan-jong: The President has not exercised it yet, but is reviewing doing so.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Reviewing it. The Chief Justice made the nomination, and having appointment authority means the President could also choose not to appoint.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Legal scholars are actually divided into majority and minority opinions on that point. The question is whether the President's appointment power is merely a formal one, similar to appointing Constitutional Court Justices elected by the National Assembly. Constitutional Court Justices are appointed that way: out of nine justices, three are chosen by the President, three by the National Assembly, and three by the Chief Justice. The President appoints their own three picks directly, so there is no issue there.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: For the three candidates elected by the National Assembly and the three nominated by the Chief Justice, the President's power is considered a formal appointment authority, meaning the President must appoint them unless there is an obvious legal or moral defect.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Simply signing off.
▶Lim Chan-jong: This was clarified in a Constitutional Court ruling during Acting President Choi Sang-mok's term. The debate is whether the relationship between the Chief Justice's nomination power and the President's appointment power can be viewed in the same light.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: An interesting aspect is that a similar debate took place three years ago.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Really?
▶Lim Chan-jong: Under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, when then-Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su was about to nominate Supreme Court Justices. As I will explain shortly, it was not about dictating a specific candidate, but reports emerged that the presidential office was considering refusing to appoint if certain candidates were nominated, and the office actually reviewed that. Back then, some constitutional scholars argued that such a move would neutralize the Chief Justice's nomination power, asserting that the Chief Justice's nomination authority must be respected and that the President holds only a formal appointment power. Now, the positions between the ruling and opposition sides have flipped.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: The ruling and opposition roles have reversed.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Yes.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: What I am curious about is that a clash occurred regardless. Someone must be at fault. If the nomination is returned as reported,
▶Lim Chan-jong: It is being considered and given serious weight.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: If it is returned, did the President neutralize the Chief Justice's nomination power, or did the Chief Justice neutralize the President's appointment power by nominating without prior consultation? Who is at fault here?
▶Lim Chan-jong: The expression "neutralizing appointment power" does not seem entirely fitting, because appointment power can be exercised at any time.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes, speaking strictly in terms of contrasting arguments.
▶Lim Chan-jong: The conflicting claims come down to who is responsible.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Simply put.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Fundamentally, the fact that such a situation occurred in the first place is undesirable.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Indeed.
▶Lim Chan-jong: In terms of where the greater issue lies, one argument is that the President attempting to de facto neutralize the Chief Justice's nomination power is the problem.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: That is the opposition's perspective.
▶Lim Chan-jong: The other argument is that the Chief Justice bypassed the President, breaking convention and exercising nomination power in an overly arbitrary manner. To understand this, we need to look at what happened. Former Justice Noh Tae-ak retired in March, and the process began in February. When the process started, no one expected it to become such a major issue.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Right.
▶Lim Chan-jong: To explain this further: before the Chief Justice makes a nomination, the Supreme Court Justice Candidate Recommendation Committee convenes. It recommends to the Chief Justice that one or two candidates among a certain group should be nominated. While this recommendation is not legally binding, the Chief Justice is required to respect it.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: But nominations usually come from that pool, right?
▶Lim Chan-jong: Almost always. Four candidates were recommended in February ahead of former Justice Noh Tae-ak's retirement. Three of the four were considered progressive judges: Senior Judge Kim Min-gi, who is now at the center of controversy as the candidate favored by the Blue House; Senior Judge Yoon Sung-sik; Senior Judge Park Soon-young; and Senior Judge Son Bong-gi, who was recently nominated.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Among them, the three other than Senior Judge Son Bong-gi had distinctly progressive leanings. Interestingly, regarding Senior Judge Park Soon-young, as I mentioned earlier about the controversy three years ago under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, Park Soon-young was one of the judges whom the Yoon administration considered rejecting due to prominent progressive tendencies.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Is that so?
▶Lim Chan-jong: With three out of four being progressive, the expectation was that even if relations between Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae and President Lee Jae-myung were not smooth, things would proceed without major friction. However, while we cannot know the exact details of conversations between the Senior Presidential Secretary for Civil Affairs and the Minister of National Court Administration, what has been reported and confirmed is that the Blue House insisted on Senior Judge Kim Min-gi among the four.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Initially, the Chief Justice's side argued that Senior Judge Kim Min-gi's husband is Constitutional Court Justice Oh Young-joon, an appointee of President Lee Jae-myung, and that having a married couple concurrently serve on the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court would be inappropriate. They suggested choosing from the other three candidates, but the two sides remained at an impasse. Over time, from the Supreme Court's perspective, disqualifying factors arose regarding the other two candidates: Yoon Sung-sik, Park Soon-young, and Son Bong-gi. After being recommended, Senior Judge Yoon Sung-sik was appointed presiding judge of the bench exclusively handling rebellion cases. Appointing a judge currently overseeing an insurrection bench to the Supreme Court became problematic.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Furthermore, while Senior Judge Park Soon-young initially faced no controversy, issues later arose regarding the National Election Commission (NEC), where Park serves as an NEC commissioner. With a special counsel probe into the NEC and other related issues, appointing her also became difficult. Consequently, the only remaining candidate was,
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Things kept getting more complicated.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Son Bong-gi was the only one left. The Supreme Court felt it had no choice but to go with Son Bong-gi. Meanwhile, the Blue House maintained from the beginning that it wanted Kim Min-gi. Close communication did not appear to continue, and as they ran on parallel tracks, members of the ruling party argued that the prolonged delay in nomination constituted grounds for impeachment. Regardless of whether it constitutes grounds for impeachment, such a long delay is neither desirable nor right.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: There were even discussions about dropping all four candidates and reconvening a new recommendation committee. Ultimately, Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae took the stance that Son Bong-gi was the only viable option, as the other three candidates were entirely unacceptable by his standards, and proceeded with nominating Senior Judge Son Bong-gi without an agreement. These are the facts, and opinions on who is at fault may vary depending on one's perspective.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae's view that the other three candidates were unviable was not due to moral failings or lack of legal competence.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Not at all.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Rather, their current roles made them inappropriate for a Supreme Court seat, potentially creating conflict-of-interest concerns.
▶Lim Chan-jong: That is part of it. The most decisive factor was the issue surrounding Senior Judge Kim Min-gi. The Blue House pushed for Senior Judge Kim Min-gi. Regarding this, the Supreme Court has one official reason and a second, unofficial reason. The official reason is that a married couple concurrently serving on the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court could create conflicts of interest and is therefore inappropriate.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: What else might there be?
▶Lim Chan-jong: The other reason falls into the realm of analysis. While the Blue House can offer opinions, singling out a specific individual undermines the Chief Justice's constitutional nomination power. The Chief Justice's side believes that while consultations can take place, demanding a specific person at all costs excessively neutralizes their nomination authority.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: I see. The Chief Justice remained quiet for seven months—or at least we do not know all the behind-the-scenes details—and has now taken this strong measure. Why take such a strong step now? Was it because further delay might lead to impeachment?
▶Lim Chan-jong: Primarily, the vacancy had simply lasted too long. Having a Supreme Court vacancy without a nomination drag on for five or six months is highly unusual and likely unprecedented.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Second, during the ruling party convention, Song Young-gil, a candidate for party leader, explicitly stated that this delay justified impeachment, among other reasons. Faced with such pressure, the Chief Justice felt that a decision had to be made and a path forward had to be found.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: From Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae's perspective, the Blue House maintained that Senior Judge Son Bong-gi was unacceptable, preventing any agreement.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Why was Son Bong-gi considered unacceptable?
▶Lim Chan-jong: According to the Supreme Court, the Blue House consistently stated from beginning to end that it wanted Senior Judge Kim Min-gi. As mentioned earlier, the Supreme Court refused for two reasons: the spousal issue and the perception that the Blue House was essentially ordering a specific pick.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Understood.
▶Lim Chan-jong: As a potential solution, the Supreme Court considered reconvening the recommendation committee,
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Starting over from scratch?
▶Lim Chan-jong: Starting over from scratch, hoping to discover new candidates agreeable to both sides. Early last week, the Minister of National Court Administration phoned the four recommended candidates individually to ask how they would feel about voluntarily withdrawing so the committee could be reconvened. However, some candidates reacted with strong pushback, leading to an apology, as confirmed by the Minister himself in the National Assembly.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Why did those candidates push back? Were they demanding to be appointed?
▶Lim Chan-jong: The exact reasons were not disclosed, so I cannot say for certain.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Because things were not working out.
▶Lim Chan-jong: While the specific reasons were not stated, it is understandable that they would feel upset.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Of course, after being recommended.
▶Lim Chan-jong: As a legal professional yourself, Attorney Kim, imagine being recommended as a Supreme Court Justice candidate, waiting in uncertainty, and then suddenly receiving a call asking, "Could you please withdraw voluntarily?" Would that feel pleasant?
▷Kim Tae-hyun: I would say, "Why start over? Just appoint me."
▶Lim Chan-jong: It is entirely natural human nature that they would feel aggrieved.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: How do you expect this to unfold? If the Blue House rejects the nomination, which seems almost certain, Son Bong-gi is out. Then another candidate among the remaining three must be submitted.
▶Lim Chan-jong: The Supreme Court appears to have anticipated this outcome when making the nomination without prior agreement. They likely want to reconvene the recommendation committee.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: The phone calls made a week ago were an attempt to find a way to reconvene the committee without causing public friction. Although that approach backfired and had to be abandoned,
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Yes.
▶Lim Chan-jong: If the Blue House returns the nomination, while the Supreme Court has not officially stated its position, it hopes to restart the process by convening the recommendation committee to present multiple candidates acceptable to both sides. Whether that will happen, or whether Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae will face parliamentary summons or even an impeachment motion as suggested by the ruling party, remains to be seen.
▷Kim Tae-hyun: Understood. This has been very insightful. We will wrap up here. That was SBS Legal Affairs Correspondent Lim Chan-jong. Thank you.
▶Lim Chan-jong: Thank you.
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