"I Asked Park Youngjae": Supreme Court Justice Summoned Over Han Dong-hoon's Allegations — Court Administration's Response

The National Court Administration has denied allegations that it rejected a past request from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office to exclude a judge close to then-nominee for Justice Kim Seung-won from the warrant review of a related company official, in connection with the "new drug lobbying allegations."

Appearing at a plenary session of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly today (Sept. 9), National Court Administration Minister Roh Kyung-pil responded to a question from Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Dong-ah asking whether it is plausible for a prosecutor to visit the Supreme Court and demand a change of judge, saying, "We are currently verifying the facts, but no such facts have been uncovered as of yet."

Previously, independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon claimed that the judge at the Seoul Western District Court who dismissed the arrest warrant for CEO Kang of Genencel, the core figure in the new drug lobbying suspicions, had a special relationship with then-nominee Kim and a broker surnamed Yang.

The judge in question is currently Senior Judge Jeong of the Seoul Central District Court, and controversy arose after a photo of him taken together with broker Yang and then-nominee Kim in February 2022 was made public.

About 10 months after his meeting with Yang and then-nominee Kim, in December 2023, Senior Judge Jeong dismissed the arrest warrant for Genencel CEO Kang on charges including attempted fraud.

Lawmaker Han has raised allegations that at the time of the warrant review, the head of the Planning and Coordination Department at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office visited the Deputy Head of the National Court Administration carrying a letter to request that Senior Judge Jeong be excluded from the warrant review, but that the request was refused.

The Deputy Head of the National Court Administration at that time was current Supreme Court Justice Park Youngjae.

On this day, when asked by lawmaker Kim whether he had "asked Supreme Court Justice Park Youngjae," Minister Roh answered, "I did ask him," and added, "[Justice Park] stated that no such thing ever happened."

He went on to state, "Because the Court Administration does not interfere in trials, we also find this quite perplexing," emphasizing, "We do not get involved in such matters."

The new drug lobbying allegations center on claims that in 2021, then-nominee Kim received a request from Genencel CEO Kang through broker Yang and asked then-Minister of Food and Drug Safety Kim Gang-lip to approve clinical trials for Genencel's therapeutic drug.

(Reported by Kim Jiuk | Video by Lee Eui-seon | Graphics by Sumin Lee | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.