The police decided not to prosecute Kim Young-hwan, the governor of North Chungcheong Province, who was accused of obstructing official duties related to the expansion of medical school quotas.
According to North Chungcheong Province on the 10th, the Yeongdeungpo Police Station in Seoul recently decided not to prosecute the case in which the Council of University Professors in Korea (CUPK) reported Governor Kim and others.
Not prosecuting means concluding a case without reviewing it when the requirements do not match.
The police are said to have determined that there were insufficient specific reasons or circumstances to conclude that the responsible public official acted differently from the original intent or engaged in unnecessary official duties.
Previously, the CUPK reported Governor Kim, the then Director General of the North Chungcheong Province Health and Welfare Bureau, Vice Minister Lee Joo-ho of the Ministry of Education, and Vice Minister Oh Seok-hwan for obstruction of official duties via hierarchical means through a legal representative last July.
The CUPK claimed they reported these individuals because "the Director General of the North Chungcheong Province Health and Welfare Bureau, a stakeholder in the allocation committee (for medical school quotas) under the Ministry of Education, should not attend, yet he was allowed to attend the allocation committee held on March 15 at the Korea Educational Facility Safety Agency to increase the admission quota of Chungbuk National University's medical school from 49 to 200," stating, "He obstructed the official duties of the public officials in charge of the allocation committee as a hierarchy." At that time, there was a significant conflict between the government and the medical community over the expansion of medical school quotas.