Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae has nominated two senior judges, Son Bong-gi and Kim Seong-su, to the Supreme Court, restarting an appointment process that had been delayed for months amid friction between the judiciary and the presidential office.
Son is a senior judge at the Daegu District Court and Kim serves at the Seoul High Court. The nominations are intended to fill seats associated with former Justice Roh Tae-ak and Justice Lee Heung-gu, and Korean reporting says the process had been stalled for roughly five months.
The unusual part was the process
The institutional story is not only who was selected. Cho sent the nominations to President Lee Jae Myung in writing rather than following the usual pattern of prior coordination with the presidential office. That unusual process drew criticism from some ruling-party figures and renewed arguments about the relationship between the executive and the judiciary.
The constitutional process now moves to the political branches. The president must submit appointment-consent motions to the National Assembly, and the nominees need parliamentary approval before appointment. That gives lawmakers a direct role in resolving, or extending, the vacancies.
Because the nominations arrive after a long delay, timing matters. Korean coverage has warned that overlapping vacancies can affect the court's ability to handle full-bench cases smoothly. The next test is therefore less about the rhetoric surrounding Cho's written notice and more about whether the confirmation process advances without another prolonged institutional standoff.