단상斷想

What Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae showed at the National Assembly audit on October 6 was not a failure to explain, but a thought process in which the language of responsibility did not function at all. Despite being selected as a general witness, he refused to take an oath and testify, instead reading 'unconstitutional' four times from a prepared paper, and interpreting Article 104 of the Constitution as the exclusive territory of the Chief Justice alone. Those six minutes were not an answer from the head of the judiciary, but a reaffirmation of his own authority. His logic was that the National Assembly and the President cannot be involved in the nomination, that consultation is not a constitutional obligation but merely cooperation that has been voluntarily carried out, that there is no constitutional problem even if there is no consultation, and that since the Chief Justice's authority and duty ended with the nomination, he had no choice but to refuse to take an oath or testify. Within this circuit, questions, vacancies, and public concern are all outside the scope of authority.

Legal responsibility begins precisely at this point. Article 104 of the Constitution is a provision that stipulates that Supreme Court justices are to be appointed in the order of nomination by the Chief Justice, consent by the National Assembly, and appointment by the President; it is not a provision that suspends the authority of the other two institutions with a single nomination. It is true that the nomination is the starting point. However, interpreting the starting point as the end point, and demoting the subsequent consent and appointment to procedures subservient to the will of the nominator, goes beyond the literal text of the provision. The remark that it was difficult to proceed with subsequent procedures because the Blue House's official request for re-nomination lacked specific reasons and constitutional grounds is also part of the same circuit. While expressing regret for causing public concern due to the prolonged vacancy, it does not reach the point that his own decision to stick with the already nominated candidate was the decision that maintained the vacancy.

The Democratic Party publicly stated that it considers this rejection and the vacancy, which has lasted over 200 days, to be a violation of the Constitution and laws, and that there are sufficient grounds for impeachment. They also listed the convening of a meeting immediately after the December 3rd emergency martial law and the controversy over electoral neutrality surrounding the remand before the presidential election. Impeachment is not yet a decided responsibility. However, the reason why the responsibility cannot simply be dismissed as a political attack is that the entity that halted the formation of the court is explaining that halt solely as a flaw in the opposing official document. The independence of the judiciary is the principle that the content of trials must be free from the directives of power; it is not an immunity that pushes the delay in formation, the formality of attendance, and the inadequacy of materials outside the scope of the duty to explain.

The procedures of the parliamentary audit are an extension of the same responsibility. It was pointed out that after being selected as a witness, he refused to take an oath, answered only the questions he wanted to answer in the morning, then left without the chairman's permission when the audit resumed in the afternoon, and only returned late at night to make a concluding statement. The Democratic Party's floor spokesperson viewed this as an act of disrespect towards the National Assembly and the public and demanded his resignation. Even members of the National Assembly take an oath and leave according to procedure when summoned by the court. If the head of the judiciary can arbitrarily choose that procedure, then oaths and answers become obligations only for those with less power. He stated that he had no choice but to refuse because there is no constitutional basis for the parliamentary audit and the demand for testimony. The judgment that there is no basis and the attitude of the person who made that judgment refusing scrutiny because they are the party to that judgment are different levels. The moment the latter is packaged as the former, responsibility disappears behind interpretation.

Business promotion expenses show how this disappearance is repeated in financial records. It was the head of the National Court Administration who admitted and apologized for reports that documents were prepared with false information about the number of attendees at meals. Several allegations of falsehood were raised regarding the first half's execution details, and the ruling party claimed it was an inflation to circumvent the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act. Cho Hee-dae himself stated that he had never seen the card, did not drink a single drop of alcohol, and had no knowledge of budget allocation, execution, or the cost of meals on those days. He said it seemed there were instances where the amount was exceeded and that he expected the administration to correct it, adding that he was sorry to the public. The institution admitted that the records of public funds executed in the name of its head were false, yet the head steps back behind the expenditure officer and responsible staff. If a defendant made the same explanation in court, it would sound like an evasion of responsibility in a trial he presides over. If such a statement only grants immunity in his own case, then equality before the law is first broken within the walls of the court.

What can only be called abnormal here is not the clinical diagnosis. Concluding a person's mental state with a medical diagnosis based solely on public statements goes beyond the scope of facts, and such a conclusion blurs the point. The core of the problem lies in the fact that the thought process cannot receive external sentences as questions and translates everything into an infringement of authority. A request for re-recommendation is an unwarranted interference, a demand for testimony is unconstitutional, and when asked about declining trust, a conference presentation stating that judicial trust has improved according to international organization data is returned. Regarding 12/3, he says he gave instructions not to provide personnel and lists, so he did not cooperate at all, and regarding the Western District Court incident, he says he has never been silent or negligent.

To the question, 'Do you dream of becoming the next Yoon Suk-yeol?', they respond that it is insulting and sad. Each sentence is complete within itself. However, that completeness does not meet the meaning that citizens hear. It's not a mistake made due to a lack of understanding of words, but rather a state where the responsibility that words carry when they go out into the world does not exist as an item within the grammar. It is the inability of someone who has exercised final interpretive authority their entire life to accept within language that their interpretation has now become the subject of interpretation – that is the thought process revealed by the parliamentary audit. A normal legal professional speaks on the premise that their reading of a provision can be subject to dispute. An interpretation without that premise is not legal principle but self-affirmation.

The qualifications of a Supreme Court Justice are not filled solely by years of experience and appointment procedures. The fact that one meets the formal requirements and has been seated through nomination, consent, and appointment is separate from the fact that one is currently performing the judgments required by that position. There are three minimum qualifications required of a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: not to halt due to court composition, to answer as the head regarding public funds and public records, and to endure within due process the possibility that one's constitutional interpretation may be wrong. Cho Hee-dae's parliamentary audit emptied these three, one by one. Vacancies became flaws in opposing official documents, apologies for false entries were left to the chief, and disputes over interpretation were sealed with the word 'unconstitutional'.

A normal Supreme Court Justice, when their nomination does not lead to consent and appointment, seeks other avenues to restore the composition. A normal head of an institution does not attribute false information in documents under their name solely to the mistakes of subordinates. A normal legal professional does not refuse to take an oath and then, with the same mouth, definitively confirm the justification for that refusal. If all three of these are missing simultaneously, what remains is not a letter of appointment but a human-shaped placeholder filling the void of the office.

If the judiciary protects this circuit simply because it is the head, then the protector is approving his grammar as the institution's grammar. The fact that the National Court Administration apologized for the attendance record is proof that the institution can still correct its words in the face of facts. When that correction remains with the director and the head's language is not shaken, the impression the public receives is that the entire judiciary has been captured by one person's self-interest. Responsibility then shifts from the individual to the institution. The independence of trials and the infallibility of the head are different things. To protect the former, one must be able to doubt the latter, and doubt must come not only in words but also in procedures, whether it be impeachment, resignation, or correction of records. While those procedures are not visible, the thought system of one person, Cho Hee-dae, determines both the speed of the Supreme Court's composition and the limits of the judiciary's language. The reality that approaches the public is thus summarized in one sentence: The person who ultimately speaks the law cannot send the responsibility for his words outside his own grammar, and the institution cannot yet call that inability a matter of qualification.