Justice minister nominee Kim Seung-won withdrew his candidacy on Saturday, ending a nomination that had been under mounting pressure since allegations surfaced over his involvement in the approval of a COVID-19 treatment clinical trial.
Kim made the announcement at a press conference at the National Assembly, telling reporters that after much deliberation, he decided to step down as the nominee for justice minister, and apologized for failing to live up to expectations. The statement closed out a nomination fight that had consumed much of the past week in Seoul.
A Résumé Built Inside the System
Kim, a two-term lawmaker with the ruling Democratic Party of Korea first elected to the 21st National Assembly in 2020, built his career largely inside the institutions he was nominated to oversee. He served as a judge at the Jeonju District Court and the Suwon District Court before moving into the presidential office under the Moon Jae-in administration, and later chaired the Democratic Party's legal affairs committee, a background that made him a natural pick for the justice ministry even as it gave critics a long paper trail to scrutinize.
A Hearing That Never Settled Down
The trouble traces back to Thursday, when the main opposition People Power Party objected during the parliamentary committee's adoption of the confirmation hearing report, refusing to let the process move forward smoothly. That hearing had already turned into a two-front fight, with lawmakers pressing Kim over the COVID-19 clinical trial allegations on one side and a separate controversy over leaked prosecution materials tied to independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon on the other.
What Happens to the Post Now
Kim's withdrawal leaves the justice ministry without a confirmed pick and hands President Lee Jae-myung the task of naming a replacement, a search that will unfold against the same scrutiny that ended Kim's bid. Whether the next nominee can clear a confirmation process already primed for confrontation may depend less on their record than on how cleanly the opposition believes that record can withstand the kind of hearing that just cost Kim the job.