President Lee Jae-myung on the 18th approved the appointment of Kim Jong-chul as the first Chairperson of the Korea Media and Communications Commission. Kim became the inaugural Chairperson of the Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) after the abolition of the Korea Communications Commission and the establishment of the new body. It came 78 days after the Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) was newly launched under the Lee Jae-myung administration.
On the 17th, the National Assembly's Science. ICT. Broadcasting. and Communications Committee adopted the confirmation hearing report on Chairperson Kim. Earlier, the Democratic Party of Korea submitted a qualified opinion and the People Power Party submitted an unqualified opinion, and the hearing report was adopted.
Chairperson Kim was nominated on the 28th of last month as the first candidate for Chairperson of the Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC). At the time, Presidential Office Spokesperson Kang Yu-jung explained the background of the personnel choice by saying Kim is "a constitutional scholar and media law expert with a deep understanding of freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution and its limits."
Chairperson Kim was born in 1966 in Jinju, South Gyeongsang, graduated from Masan Jungang High School, and then earned a degree in public law from Seoul National University. Kim received a master's degree in law from the graduate school at Seoul National University and obtained master's and doctoral degrees from the Department of Law at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the United Kingdom. Starting in 1999, Kim worked as a full-time lecturer and assistant professor at the College of Law at Hanyang University. In 2003, Kim served as an assistant professor and associate professor in the Department of Law at Yonsei University. After becoming vice dean of the College of Law at Yonsei University in 2008, Kim has served as a professor at the Yonsei University Law School since 2009.
Kim served as the 40th president of the Korean Public Law Association, president of the Korean Association for Media Law, and president of the Korean Association of Human Rights Law, establishing a reputation as a scholar in public law, media, and human rights. Kim also served as vice chair of the Presidential Advisory Special Committee on the People's Constitution, research member of the Information and Communications Ethics Committee, member of the Prosecutorial Reform Committee at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, and advisor to the Policy Advisory Committee at the Board of Audit and Inspection. In 2020, Kim also served as a member of the Candidate Recommendation Committee for the head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, recommended by the Democratic Party of Korea.
Chairperson Kim has published numerous works, including The politics of constitutional amendment (2017); Review of constitutional amendment proposals related to the power structure and judicial reform (2018); Rethinking reform of the National Assembly election law system: from the perspective of the evolution of the "Korean-style democratic republican system" (2020); and Reform tasks of the 1987 system and the role of constitutional adjudication: focusing on the Moon Jae-in amendment proposal (2022).
Chairperson Kim has been a strong critic of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's Korea Communications Commission. In Aug. last year, in a media op-ed, Kim noted, "They appointed people connected to the (Yoon Suk-yeol) president as chairperson and commissioners, ignored opposition party recommendations, and focused on factionalizing the governance structure of public broadcasters."