Hwang, Un-ha of the Democratic Party of Korea, and Kwon, In-sook of the Citizens’ Party The National Election Commission should declare the above two candidates’ elections to be invalid.
Hwang, Un-ha, who ran in the Dong-gu district of Daejeon Metropolitan City as a candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), and Kwon, In-sook, who ran as a proportional representation candidate of the Citizens’ Party in the April 15 general elections, were not eligible to run in the election due to their lack of qualifications under the Public Official Election Act. The election announcement of their victories by the National Election Commission should be therefore be rescinded and their elections nullified.
The Public Official Election Act stipulates that those who are in positions that can affect elections, such as public officials, must resign by the deadline set by the Public Official Election Act if they want to run for public office. This rule is meant to secure the fairness of the election and prevent undue influence by candidates who may take advantage of their positions in campaigning or influencing the election. However, both Hwang and Kwon did not resign from their posts by the deadline set by the Public Official Election Act.
Therefore, according to the Public Official Election Act, they were not eligible to register as candidates for the National Assembly election on April 15. Nevertheless, the National Election Commission (NEC) not only accepted their registrations as candidates, but also confirmed their election victories rather than declaring their elections invalid.
1. Hwang, Un-ha’s case
According to the Public Official Election Act, state officials as described in Article 2 of the National Public Officials Act are required to resign their posts 90 days before the election day (which would in this case have been January 15) if they want to run for a constituency seat.
Hwang, Un-ha is a national public official as head of the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency, so he had to resign by January 15 to run in the election. However, he failed to resign by that deadline and he remains officially a police officer.
It seems that within that period, he submitted his resignation as a mere gesture. However, he was not allowed to resign at that time under the regulations, because he had then already been referred for investigation under police internal disciplinary procedures. He was indicted by the prosecution in December of last year for his alleged role in the Ulsan mayoral election fraud case.
Laws and regulations prohibit those who are referred to disciplinary proceedings for committing irregularities from resigning their offices until they are punished by disciplinary procedures. It is only natural that the National Police Agency should not have accepted his legally invalid resignation.
In this case, he was thus not qualified to run for the National Assembly and should have given up his candidacy because it should have been considered a case of a national public official failing to resign from his position as required by law.
Nevertheless, the Democratic Party nominated him, and then he registered as a candidate for the National Assembly. The NEC accepted his nomination even though it should have refused it. As a result, he had dual status as an incumbent police officer and a lawmaker-elect.
Despite this apparent violation of the law, the NEC has yet to declare his election invalid.
On April 20, National Police Agency Commissioner General Min, Gap-ryong told a press conference about the Hwang, Un-ha matter: “Under the Constitution and the National Assembly Act, concurrent posts are prohibited. But you cannot be dismissed if you are being indicted under a presidential order in connection with a case of corruption involving civil servants,” and he added, “We will make a reasonable decision according to the laws and regulations set forth in the law.”
But the real question is not whether one can concurrently serve as a police official and a lawmaker, but rather about the validity of one’s election under such circumstances. The police chief said he would make a reasonable decision. But that is a ridiculous response, because it is not up to the police chief to decide.
2. Kwon, In-sook’s case
According to the Public Official Election Act, full-time executives who are working for public institutions (Here, “public institutions” means institutions under “the Law on the Operation of Public Institutions in Article 4 Clause 1,” in which the government owns more than 50/100 of their shares) must resign 30 days before the election day to run for seats as proportional representatives.
In 2017, Kwon was appointed as a full-time director of the Korea Women’s Policy Institute by the Moon, Jae-in administration. This institute is clearly part of the “Other Public Institutions” under “the Law on the Operation of Public Institutions” because the government contributed 70/100 of its total budget in 2019.
Therefore, she had to resign by March 15, 30 days before the election day, if she wanted to run for a proportional representation seat. However, she did not resign until March 23, eight days later, when she was nominated as a proportional representative candidate of the Citizens’ Party. This was confirmed by a press report on that day.
Despite her lack of qualifications to register as a proportional representative lawmaker candidate, the Citizens’ Party nominated and registered her as a proportional representative candidate, and the NEC committed the illegal act of accepting her nomination even though she should have been refused registration due to her having missed the resignation deadline.
Several lawyers have publicly raised questions about Kwon, In-sook’s violation of the law, and some media, including Ilyo [Sunday] Seoul and Pen & Mike, have even reported it. Nevertheless, the NEC has yet to declare the invalidity of the election.
The current administration tends to ignore the legality of the electoral process or procedures in order to obtain the results is wants. No matter how powerful the administration is, the rule of law must be upheld. That is what a democracy is all about.
Dong-hyeon Seok is the former chief of the Busan District Prosecutors’ Office, and the former chief of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office.
