[Editorial] Shame on the repeated appointment fiascoes

Chung Sun-sin, former chief lawyer of law firm Pyeongsan, resigned from the head of the National Office of Investigation on Sunday, a day after his appointment. The appointment of the former prosecutor as commander of more than 30,000 police investigators spiked controversy from the beginning. But the reason for his stepdown was the violence his son wielded on a classmate at a high school. After the son had to transfer to another school for verbal violence, his father took a series of legal actions to defend his son and eventually lost a court battle.

A sharp contrast between the victim, who even attempted to commit suicide after insurmountable mental pain, and the son, who successfully got admitted into Seoul National University, only fueled public rage at the violence. After Chung decided to withdraw from the post, President Yoon Suk Yeol immediately accepted it.

The Democratic Party (DP) urged the president to “apologize for his repeated appointment disasters” and “punish government officials dealing with scrutinizing candidates for public offices.” The DP squarely targeted its attack on Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon, who commands the personnel affairs management unit in the ministry.

The abrupt resignation of the former prosecutor-turned-lawyer is shocking. The school violence of his son was reported by broadcast media in detail five years ago. In the footage, he maliciously ridiculed his classmate as “a pig from Jeju Island” or “a leftist commie.” The broadcast did not disclose the name of the father of the perpetrator, but confirmed his job as a senior prosecutor.

If the presidential office and the justice ministry failed to confirm such facts in advance, that’s a big problem. But if they really had pressed ahead with Chung’s appointment while knowing his son’s serious problems at school, that’s a bigger problem. Many aspirants for top posts in the government paid a heavy price due to problems with their offspring. But the presidential office’s explanation that there is a limit to screening their children’s pasts does not make sense.

Chung graduated from the Judicial Research & Training Institute in the same year as the justice minister and Prosecutor General Lee Won-seok after passing the bar examination. Chung also worked with President Yoon when Yoon was a prosecutor in the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office and the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office. Citizens wonder if such personal connections really helped blunt the blade of scrutiny.

The Yoon administration has shown so many loopholes in its personnel affairs management. The government must improve the screening system so as not to damage the fairness and common sense the president enthusiastically championed. The president must listen to criticisms about any structural problems with the screening system and the overconcentration of former prosecutors in major government posts.