Seoul education superintendent to step down as Supreme Court upholds power abuse conviction

The Supreme Court upheld on Thursday the verdict for Seoul education superintendent Cho Hee-yeon, who was indicted on charges of unfairly ordering the special hiring of dismissed teachers.

Seoul education superintendent Cho Hee-yeon steps out of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education headquarters in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Thursday to deliver a statement on the Supreme Court verdict doled out the same day. [YONHAP]

The Supreme Court upheld on Thursday the verdict for Seoul education superintendent Cho Hee-yeon, who was indicted on charges of unfairly ordering the special hiring of dismissed teachers.

The decision effectively strips Seoul's first three-term education superintendent of his post with about two years left on his current term. A by-election to elect his successor will be held on Oct. 16.

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to sentence Cho to one year and six months in prison, suspended for two years.

Cho was indicted in December 2021 on charges of abusing his authority to hire five former teachers from the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU) between October and December 2018, forcing education officials to carry out special recruitment procedures disguised as open competitive exams to do so.

According to the Local Education Autonomy Act and the Public Official Election Act, if an education superintendent is sentenced to imprisonment, they lose the right to be elected and must step down from their post.

An investigation by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) determined that Cho hired five former teachers upon request from the KTU and instructed his staff to proceed with special recruitment procedures despite objections from the vice education superintendent and others.

One of the five former teachers specially hired by Cho ran as a primary candidate in the education superintendent election in June 2018 but helped with Cho’s election campaign after unifying the other candidates behind him.

Cho denied all charges, but the first and second trials found him guilty on all counts and gave him a suspended sentence.

“The special hiring in this case showed that the public service hiring process, which should guarantee equal opportunity and fairness, was distorted for the personal favor of somebody in power,” the second trial court said in its ruling. “Civil servants were forced to carry out special hiring in a way that violated the principles and standards of their jobs due to Cho.”

Cho argued that the hiring process was conducted through open competition, but the court ruled that “the minimum level of practical open competition was not ensured.” It also rejected Cho's argument that the process was free of problems because two external legal reviews were held.

Cho's case was the first directly investigated by the CIO, which was launched in January 2021. It is also the first case in which a guilty verdict was handed down through an investigation by the CIO.

As the CIO only has the right to investigate cases without the right to indict, the case was transferred to the prosecution in September 2021.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]