Court Rules Against Revoking Appointment Despite Irregularities in NEC Hiring Process

A court has ruled that while there were procedural irregularities in the National Election Commission's (NEC) career-competitive hiring process, such as the arbitrary alteration of interview evaluation sheets, the revocation of an appointment based on these grounds is invalid.

The Seoul Administrative Court, presided over by Judge Gong Hyun-jin of the 2nd Administrative Division, ruled partially in favor of the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by an individual, identified as A, against the Secretary-General of the NEC, seeking to nullify and cancel the revocation of their appointment.

A, who was previously a local government official, passed a career-competitive hiring exam for a regional NEC office in 2021 and was appointed as a Grade 8 national civil servant before being promoted to Grade 7.

Following allegations of preferential hiring for the children of high-ranking NEC officials, the Board of Audit and Inspection conducted an audit. Based on these findings, A was issued a notice of appointment revocation.

The grounds for the revocation included the undue influence exerted by A's father, who was a standing commissioner at the NEC, the arbitrary alteration of interview evaluation sheets, and the fact that A was appointed after resigning from their previous position without obtaining the required transfer consent from their former agency.

In response, A filed an administrative lawsuit, arguing that there were procedural flaws in the revocation process and that the grounds for the disciplinary action did not exist.

The court acknowledged that during the hiring process, interviewers had arbitrarily modified evaluation sheets, which resulted in the rankings of certain applicants being lowered.

The court pointed out, "The NEC office in question instructed internal interviewers before the interviews began to write their evaluations in pencil and submit them without signing the signature line, in anticipation of later revisions," adding, "They then arbitrarily altered the scores on the internal interviewers' evaluation sheets and recalculated the summary table."

As a result, three applicants saw their rankings rise and were included for appointment, while two others were excluded despite having passed the interview stage.

However, the court determined that even though there were irregularities in the hiring process, revoking A's appointment on these grounds was unlawful.

The court explained, "The modification of evaluation sheets by interviewers is not a reason for which A can be held responsible, and A was already within the passing range as a joint 4th place finisher in the interview, regardless of the alterations to the evaluation sheets."

The court further ruled to cancel the revocation of the appointment, stating that the disadvantage A would suffer outweighs the public interest intended to be achieved by the revocation.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.