Constitutional Court Justice Search

According to this story (in Korean), the Uri Party is looking outside the public sector for the new Constitutional Court justice to replace Sang-Kyung Lee, who resigned several days ago. As I discussed previously, the National Assembly gets to select three Constitutional Court justices, the President another three, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court the remaining three. And as to those to be chosen by the National Assembly, there is an informal norm according to which the major parties take turns in picking justices. This particular vacant slot will be filled by someone chosen by the Uri Party. The story quotes a Uri Party member who is an official of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly as saying that the party wants to pick a justice with a reformist outlook. The official criticized the current justices for being too conservative and stated that the party plans to select someone from outside the government to add a reformist voice to the Court.