Hearings End Up with 'Zero Witnesses': A Comparison with Yoon Administration

This week marks the so-called "Super Week of Hearings," during which confirmation hearings for the second-term cabinet appointments of the Lee Jae-myung administration are taking place one after another. Yesterday, the confirmation hearing for Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won was held, but there were no witnesses or testifiers. The same has been true for hearings of other nominees. Criticisms of "toothless hearings" continued to arise. Following last year, the keyword "zero witnesses" has once again emerged as a key point of contention in this year's confirmation hearing season.

Political circles have also voiced conflicting perspectives. First, Suh Young-kyo, chair of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee (from the Democratic Party of Korea), defended the nominee during a plenary meeting of the committee on September 9, saying, "Proceeding without witnesses is what usually happens in confirmation hearings."


On the other hand, Representative Joo Jin-woo of the People Power Party stepped up the offensive during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice nominee Kim Seong-soo on September 14, asserting, "The streak of zero witnesses and testifiers in confirmation hearings continues, and this is a disgrace to the National Assembly."


To see what happened in the past, we analyzed all confirmation hearings under the Lee Jae-myung administration. Because it could be difficult to generalize based solely on the cases of the current administration, we also examined the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, when the People Power Party was the ruling party and the Democratic Party was the opposition party. The intention was to compare the situation with the period before the roles of offense and defense were reversed. We determined that the analysis would have high validity because both administrations shared the common factor of the Democratic Party holding an overwhelming majority of nearly 180 seats in the National Assembly, which effectively served to "control" that variable.

In the National Assembly Minutes System, confirmation hearing records are organized separately, and the minutes document the lists of witnesses and testifiers who officially attended the hearings. We referenced these records.


The analysis revealed that a total of 134 confirmation hearings were held: 91 times under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration and 43 times under the Lee Jae-myung administration prior to the second-term appointments.

The 134 confirmation hearings are as follows.

After excluding confirmation hearings for nominees to the judiciary and the National Election Commission, where political contention is relatively lower, we narrowed down the selection to hearings related to government cabinet appointments. There were 104 hearings in total. In the case of confirmation hearings for judiciary and National Election Commission nominees, instances of witnesses or testifiers appearing are rare.

Accordingly, the SBS Fact Check Team analyzed these 104 cabinet-focused hearings. First, we looked at how many hearings had at least one witness or testifier in attendance.


Under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, a total of 66 confirmation hearings related to cabinet appointments were held, and among them, 24 hearings had at least one witness or testifier present, accounting for 36.4% of the total.

Under the Lee Jae-myung administration, witnesses or testifiers attended in 10 out of 38 hearings, or 26.3%.

Although the percentage has dropped somewhat under the current administration, hearings attended by witnesses or testifiers remained at around 20 to 30% of the total under both administrations.

Unlike parliamentary investigation hearings, which center on witnesses and testifiers, confirmation hearings were more frequently held centered on the nominee without witnesses or testifiers.

However, looking at the "scale" of witnesses and testifiers who attended the hearings, the difference was substantial.


A total of 130 witnesses and testifiers attended cabinet appointment confirmation hearings under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration: 55 witnesses and 75 testifiers. This represents an average of 2.0 people per hearing.

In contrast, a total of 19 people attended under the Lee Jae-myung administration: 11 witnesses and 8 testifiers, averaging 0.5 people per hearing. In a simple comparison, the scale of witness and testifier attendance under the current administration has dropped to one-fourth the level of the previous administration.

While it is difficult to make a simple numerical comparison because the political weight and gravity of allegations differ for each nominee, it is a fact that the scale has dropped considerably under the Lee Jae-myung administration. During the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, the Democratic Party, which was the majority party at the time, frequently and actively demanded the attendance of witnesses and testifiers.


While it is true that 70 to 80% of confirmation hearings for cabinet nominees had no witnesses or testifiers, the overall scale of witnesses and testifiers changed dramatically across administrations. This appears to suggest that political considerations took precedence over principles. In particular, given that the Democratic Party actively pursued the adoption of witnesses and testifiers for contentious nominees when it was in the opposition, it is difficult to explain the current practice under the universal notion of "what usually happens in confirmation hearings."

Accordingly, the SBS Fact Check Team rates the claim that "proceeding without witnesses is what usually happens in confirmation hearings" as "mostly false."


Here is another point of contention. In the opposition bloc, the issue of independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon attending the hearing has also come to the fore.


Lawmaker Han Dong-hoon has actively raised allegations regarding nominee Kim Seung-won's alleged "lobbying of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety over a COVID-19 treatment." Within the People Power Party, voices emerged calling for Han to directly scrutinize the matter. Pro-Han lawmaker Woo Jae-joon also demanded that disciplinary actions against independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon be canceled or suspended so that he could be brought into the confirmation hearing for Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won. Han had been in conflict with party leadership after being expelled from the People Power Party in January over the party members' online bulletin board controversy, and was later elected to the National Assembly as an independent in the Busan Buk-gu A by-election in June.


Representative Yoon Sang-hyun of the People Power Party argued during the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee plenary meeting on September 9, "Let us adopt lawmaker Han Dong-hoon, who was the Justice Minister at the time, as a witness for the hearing." He continued to make similar assertions thereafter. However, counterarguments emerged stating that "there is no precedent for summoning an incumbent member of the National Assembly as a witness in a confirmation hearing."

To verify this, we checked the National Assembly precedents compilation.


To state the conclusion first, no precedent could be identified of an incumbent lawmaker appearing as a witness in a confirmation hearing. However, there has been a precedent of an incumbent lawmaker appearing as a testifier.

During the 19th National Assembly, at the confirmation hearing for Prime Minister nominee Lee Wan-koo held on February 11, 2015, then-Saenuri Party lawmaker Kim Dong-wan attended as a testifier. Former lawmaker Kim Dong-wan had served as vice governor when former Prime Minister Lee was governor of South Chungcheong Province. The context was somewhat different in that his appearance served effectively to support the nominee rather than verify allegations against him.


Witnesses and testifiers go through virtually identical adoption procedures. The National Assembly precedents compilation also covers testifier attendance under the section concerning "incumbent lawmakers attending confirmation hearings as witnesses."

If the underlying intent is to determine whether an incumbent lawmaker can attend a confirmation hearing or whether any precedent exists, the precedent of testifier attendance also needs to be taken into consideration.


Ultimately, regarding lawmaker Han Dong-hoon attending the confirmation hearing, the claim that "no incumbent lawmaker has ever appeared as a witness" is accurate; however, if the statement meant that "there is no precedent for an incumbent lawmaker attending a confirmation hearing," it can be deemed contrary to fact.

Therefore, the SBS Fact Check Team evaluates the claim that "no incumbent lawmaker has ever appeared as a witness at a confirmation hearing" as "half true."


The debate surrounding "zero-witness hearings" does not seem likely to conclude with these second-term appointments alone. Similar assertions and refutations are likely to recur in a loop. We hope today's fact-check will serve as reference material to examine precedents ahead of political sparring.
 
(Writer: Kim Hyo-jin | Intern: Kim Jeong-won)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.