Foreign Service Official Hired at Discretion, Ignoring Written and Interview Scores... Court Rules One-Month Suspension Lawful

The court has ruled that a suspension imposed on a foreign service official, who conducted hiring based on arbitrary criteria instead of the evaluation items specified in the job announcement, was lawful.
According to the legal community on the 26th, Administrative Division 8 of the Seoul Administrative Court, presided over by Judge Yang Soon-joo, ruled against Section Chief A of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last November in a lawsuit seeking to overturn a one-month suspension imposed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
A, who had worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 34 years, served as chair of the personnel committee when the Consulate General recruited professional administrative staff at the end of 2020. In January 2021, after receiving the documents of 24 applicants, A selected five candidates for the written and interview stages without going through a personnel committee review and ordered that the tests be conducted.
When the written and interview scores were combined, and the highest and lowest scores excluded, candidates B and C tied for first place. Nevertheless, without personnel committee deliberation, A decided to hire B, citing "continuity and stability of work." C’s average written test score was about 12 points higher than B’s, and C’s average interview score was also about 0.6 points higher.
In June 2023, during an audit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) concluded that A had improperly handled the recruitment process and violated the duty of diligence under the State Public Officials Act, and requested disciplinary action. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sought disciplinary measures on the grounds that A had undermined fairness by hiring based on arbitrary criteria, and the Central Disciplinary Committee imposed a three-month suspension. The Appeals Review Committee of the Ministry of Personnel Management later reduced the penalty to a one-month suspension, taking into account A’s attitude of reflection.
A filed suit challenging the decision, arguing that the hiring was not arbitrary because the interview candidates had been selected "in consultation with the personnel committee secretary." A also raised an issue of fairness, noting that the working-level secretary in charge received only a "warning measure."
The court, however, found the disciplinary action justified. The bench stated, "Even if A consulted with the secretary during the hiring process, it cannot be considered justified that A passed an applicant whose fulfillment of the eligibility requirements was unclear, while rejecting other applicants who did meet the requirements on grounds such as age."
The court also pointed out that the job announcement explicitly stated that there would be a written test and an interview, yet the results were not reflected at all. By contrast, it found that the "continuity and stability of work" standard used by A was not among the eligibility criteria listed in the job notice.
The bench noted, "A violated the duty of diligence by deciding to hire B even after receiving a report from the secretary that, when combining the written test scores with the interview scores calculated under the stated method, hiring B instead of C would raise fairness concerns."
It added, "Considering the nature, character, and degree of A’s misconduct, its impact inside and outside the public service, the administrative objectives to be achieved through discipline, and A’s position at the time of the misconduct, the disciplinary measure cannot be deemed objectively and clearly unjust."
scottchoi15@fnnews.com Choi Eun-sol Reporter