A court ruled that although there were problems in the hiring process, including arbitrarily changing interview scores during experienced-worker recruitment at the National Election Commission, the appointment cannot be canceled.
The Seoul Administrative Court's Division 2 (Chief Judge Gong Hyun-jin) said on the 21st that on the 16th it ruled partially in favor of the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Mr. A seeking confirmation of invalidity and revocation of the appointment-cancellation disposition against the secretary-general of the National Election Commission.
Mr. A worked as a local public official and in 2021 passed an experienced-competition recruitment exam at a regional National Election Commission office and was appointed as a Grade 8 national public official. He was later promoted to Grade 7.
After allegations arose of preferential hiring of children of senior officials at the National Election Commission, the Board of Audit and Inspection conducted an audit. The audit found that Mr. A's father, who was a standing commissioner of the National Election Commission, exerted improper influence during the hiring process and that the interview evaluation sheets were arbitrarily altered. It also found that Mr. A did not obtain a transfer consent from his then-affiliated agency, which was a requirement for appointment.
Citing the audit results, the National Election Commission canceled Mr. A's appointment. Mr. A then filed an administrative suit, saying there was no ground for cancellation.
The court found that even if there were some defects in the hiring process, canceling Mr. A's appointment on that basis was unlawful.
The court determined that, in Mr. A's hiring process, interviewers arbitrarily revised the evaluation sheets and lowered some applicants' rankings. The National Election Commission instructed its internal interviewers to fill out the evaluation fields in pencil and to submit the forms without signing the signature field. It then arbitrarily changed the scores on the internal interviewers' evaluation sheets. As a result, three applicants moved up in rank and were included among those to be appointed, and two applicants who had passed the interview were eliminated.
In addition, although the National Election Commission knew that all five successful candidates, including Mr. A, would have difficulty obtaining transfer consent from their affiliated agencies, it declined to appoint only two of them on the grounds that they "failed to obtain transfer consent." For the remaining three, including Mr. A, it inquired whether voluntary resignation was possible at their agencies and then appointed them.
However, the court did not accept as a ground for disposition the claim that Mr. A's father exercised improper influence in the hiring process, noting that this was not established in the police investigation.
The court said, "The interviewers' revisions to the evaluation sheets are not grounds for holding Mr. A responsible," adding, "Mr. A was within the passing range as a tied fourth place in the interview, irrespective of the evaluation sheet revisions." It further said the disadvantages Mr. A would suffer outweigh the public interest sought by the disposition.