On the 28th, Park Chung-kwon, senior spokesperson of the People Power Party, issued a commentary and criticized it as "a blatant intimidation of the judiciary" that President Lee Jae-myung failed to submit the consent to appoint Supreme Court justice nominee Son Bong-gi.
Senior spokesperson Park said, "The presidential office argues that the right to recommend is merely a subordinate authority that supports the right to appoint, but Article 104 of the Constitution specifies that Supreme Court justices are appointed 'upon the recommendation of the chief justice,'" adding, "Subordinating the right to recommend to the right to appoint is an arbitrary interpretation not found in the text of the Constitution."
Park said, "The presidential office cites the breaking of the practice of prior consultation as grounds for rejection. But consultation is only a practice, not a constitutional requirement, and you cannot deny the exercise of a constitutional body's right to recommend on the grounds of failing to follow a practice," adding, "They are muddying the essence with baseless suspicions that the National Court Administration had individual contacts with nominees, but the essence of the matter is precisely the fact that the presidential office did not send the consent to appoint to the National Assembly."
Senior spokesperson Park said, "This situation ultimately amounts to an official declaration to create an 'Lee Jae-myung judiciary' with all 22 Supreme Court justices tailored to President Lee Jae-myung's preferences," adding, "Not submitting the consent to appoint to the National Assembly at all is an act of the president arbitrarily stripping the National Assembly of its constitutional consent authority."
Park went on to urge, "President Lee Jae-myung must immediately stop attempts to reshape the judiciary to suit the administration's preferences and submit the consent to appoint nominee Son Bong-gi to the National Assembly at once."