SNU sacks former justice minister after conviction

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SNU sacks former justice minister after conviction

Published: 13 Jun. 2023, 18:08 Updated: 13 Jun. 2023, 18:40

Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, left, posted a photo on Facebook of himself dining with former President Moon Jae-in in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang on Saturday. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Seoul National University (SNU) stripped former Justice Minister Cho Kuk of his professorship on Tuesday, four months after he was convicted of business obstruction, bribery and abuse of power tied to his children's academic admissions.

In a message sent out to reporters, SNU said its disciplinary committee voted to sack Cho, citing university regulations.

Cho served briefly as justice minister under the previous Moon Jae-in administration.

His nomination process in August 2019 and subsequent brief tenure at the helm of the Justice Ministry was marred by controversy and mass protests over allegations that he and his wife, Chung Kyung-sim, abused their influence as academics to give their children an unfair advantage in both undergraduate and graduate medical school admissions.

Chung, a former professor at Dongyang University, was indicted in 2019 on multiple charges, including forging her own university president’s citation and an internship certificate to bolster her daughter’s application to Pusan National University graduate medical school in 2013.

The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Chung to four years imprisonment for academic fraud, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in January last year.

Cho himself was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to forfeit 6 million won ($4,706) in February this year after the Seoul Central District Court found him guilty of obstructing the business of multiple universities by pulling strings for his children’s college admissions.

The verdict, which Cho has vowed to appeal, came nearly three years and two months since he was indicted by prosecutors in December 2019.

His daughter’s admission to medical school was revoked by Pusan National University last year, while Yonsei University said it would wait for the Supreme Court’s ruling on Cho’s case before reaching a decision on his son, who is a graduate student at the university.

Representatives of Cho, who has been relieved of his teaching duties at SNU’s law school since January 2020, criticized the university for “unfairly” firing him in a Facebook post uploaded Tuesday.

They also said Cho would “immediately appeal” his dismissal in order to “recover his honor as a public servant and safeguard his basic rights as an academic.”

On Saturday, Cho posted a photo on Facebook showing him sharing a meal with former President Moon in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang.

In the accompanying caption, Cho said that he was “deliberating what to do in this time of regression” and lamented “the undoing of all that the Moon Jae-in administration stood for.”

He also said he would “walk the path that remains uncharted,” suggesting that he could try to stage a political comeback in an unspecified form.

Cho’s cryptic message was lambasted by conservative People Power Party spokesman Kim Min-su, who called it “a scheme to run in next year’s parliamentary elections” on Monday.

In his statement, Kim asked, “Shouldn’t [Cho] be more worried about how to atone for his sins after having inflicted so much pain on the people?”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]