인권심의위원에 대한 기피신청권의 보장

Guarantee of the Right to Request the Recusal of a Human Rights Review Committee Member: Promoting Greater Use of the Recusal System

With respect to a decision made by a university human rights review board, there may be a case where the “right” of the person under review “not to be subjected to an adverse action without due process of law” is recognized because it is possible that the decision made by the board may be considered an “adverse action contrary to the will of the person under review.” In such a case, the terms of due process include the guarantee of the right to request the recusal of a board member. It is reasonable to interpret the provision, “In order to ensure fairness of the review board’s deliberations and decisions, the list of the review board members shall, in principle, remain undisclosed,” to mean that the list of the review board members shall remain confidential to third parties (external), but not to those subject to review by the board, who have the right to request the recusal of a review board member. Also, for the person subject to the board’s review to decide whether or not to file the request for the recusal, that person will need to examine the academic backgrounds, work experience, personal relationships, etc. of the board members, and thus will need to obtain such relevant materials before filing such a request for recusal. Since the foregoing work would take a considerable amount of time, this writer believes that the person subject to review should be provided with the list of the review board members at least one day prior to the review board meeting. Therefore, the failure to provide the list of the review board members to any person subject to human rights review until the opening of the review board meeting can be considered a violation of the right of the petitioners of this case to request the recusal of a review board member in breach of the principle of due process. It is the hope of this writer to see greater use of the recusal system in various organizations in Korea, such as the introduction of the system and the expansion of the grounds for recusal. This writer hopes that these advances will accumulate to encourage Korean society to move toward a more just society.