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If Chief Justice Jo Hee-de were not in place

Published: 10 Oct. 2025, 00:02

Kang Ju-an

The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo.

The government and ruling party seem preoccupied with a thought experiment: how much smoother would it have been to open the Lee Jae Myung era “if only Jo Hee-de were not chief justice.” The Supreme Court’s unusually swift ruling in the president’s election-law case has fed that mood.

Yet a look at Jo’s actions since he took office in December 2023 suggests the ruling camp has little ground for simple blame. Jo was not former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s first choice. Yoon initially tapped Lee Gyun-yong to lead the judiciary. When the National Assembly rejected that nomination, the figure both parties could accept turned out to be Jo.

Signals that a “Jo Hee-de court” would not bend easily to the Yoon administration appeared with the reshuffle of the National Court Administration in January 2024. Kim Sang-hwan, whom President Lee later named head of the Constitutional Court in July, then served as the administration’s chief. Rumors swirled that Yoon favored Kim Tae-gyu, a former Korea Communications Commission vice chair, for the second chief of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO). Analysts said the pick was blocked inside the nomination committee, where Kim Sang-hwan opposed it. Attention turned to Jo’s choice for Kim’s successor as court administrator. Jo selected Justice Cheon Dae-yeop, a Supreme Court justice recommended by former Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su and appointed by former President Moon Jae-in. The result: Kim Tae-gyu’s path to the CIO was closed again.

Chief Justice Jo Hee-de arrives for work at the Supreme Court in Seocho District, Seoul, on Sept. 30, the day a National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee hearing on alleged election interference was held. Jo submitted a letter of nonattendance on Sept. 26 for the hearing. [YONHAP]

Had Kim Tae-gyu become CIO chief, how might politics have unfolded? He was widely seen as close to Yoon, a perception reinforced when reports said he protested strongly at a Cabinet meeting after Acting President Choi Sang-mok appointed two Constitutional Court justices in the wake of Yoon’s impeachment. Consider the campaign narrative, too. A senior official from the previous presidential office later argued that the ruling party’s heavy defeat in the 22nd general election stemmed from the Corporal Chae case. Just before the vote, the CIO barred former Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup — then slated to become ambassador to Australia — from leaving the country, an episode that detonated politically. If Yoon’s preferred choice had led the CIO, would Lee have been grounded?

During the impeachment period, if Kim had led the CIO, would he have twice attempted to detain former President Yoon against presidential security agents? Seen in this larger flow, the ruling camp’s daily mockery of Jo is hard to square with recent history.

If the pressure on Jo is read as strategy, the logic is easy to grasp. The Democratic Party controls the legislature and the executive. If it also brought the judiciary to heel, little would remain beyond its reach. Frustration grows because that last step is out of reach. Under law and custom, the term of the chief justice runs until June next year. Even then, a new chief would not instantly remake the court. Sitting justices cycle out gradually, and many were proposed by former Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su, which means immediate change is unlikely. The ruling party’s impatience is understandable, but the Constitution protects judicial independence in precisely this way. Even if the number of justices rose from 14 to 26, the Constitution still gives the chief justice the power to recommend justices, making it hard to ignore Jo’s views for the time being.

With President Lee and his party leading in approval ratings, ambition is plainly high. But there is a cautionary tale. In “Why Nations Fail” (2012), Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson describe how Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to reshape the U.S. Supreme Court after clashes over New Deal legislation. Roosevelt enjoyed broad public support, and Democrats held comfortable majorities in both chambers. Yet his plan — framed as relieving overworked judges — met resistance in Congress. The scholars note that lawmakers understood that if a president undermined judicial independence, the balance of power might crack and even pluralist institutions could be threatened.

Roosevelt won 61 percent in the popular vote for his second term, but he still backed off from an overreach on court reform. That precedent is worth the ruling camp’s attention. If anger persists, it may help to review what might have happened from December 2023 onward calmly, had Jo Hee-de not been chief justice at all.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.