Human Rights Commission completes report on ‘Lee Chung-sang’s workplace harassment’, refuses to make it public

Human Rights Commission completes report on ‘Lee Chung-sang’s workplace harassment’, refuses to make it public


Refer Report

Standing member Lee Chung-sang sits before the plenary committee meeting of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea opens on the afternoon of the 28th. Reporter Shin So-young viator@hani.co.kr

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) completed a special audit report after a year-long investigation into workplace bullying by Standing Committee member Lee Chung-sang, but it turned out to have rejected the request to submit data to the National Assembly. This is because “standing committee members are neither subject to disciplinary action nor subject to personnel disadvantage.”

According to the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Seo Mi-hwa on the 29th, in response to the National Assembly’s request for the Human Rights Commission to submit a report on the results of a special audit on the current standing member’s abuse of power by employees, “Chairman Song Doo-hwan at the time said, ‘The audited person (standing member Lee Chung-sang) is a public official in political service. “I understand that he directly notified me that it was terminated without action because he was not subject to disciplinary action in accordance with the National Public Officials Act and other related laws,” he said. “If the contents of the report are made public, there are concerns about human rights violations of those involved.” Therefore, we would like to keep it private.” Even after a special audit, no action will be taken and the data will be kept confidential because this member is a political official who cannot be disciplined.

According to the Human Rights Commission’s response, the audit of this member began with an employee posting on the Human Rights Commission’s internal network (intranet) bulletin board in February of last year. According to the employees of the Human Rights Commission, in the process of arguing with employees after Commissioner Lee directly commented on an employee’s post pointing out hate speech by Commissioner Lee, the employees took issue with Commissioner Lee’s post and raised the issue of workplace harassment. raised. Afterwards, some members of the plenary committee requested to find out the facts about the bulletin board posts and report them, and the civil servant labor union of the Human Rights Commission also filed a complaint against this member, and the audit began.

Accordingly, the Human Rights Commission conducted a basic investigation into the affected employees starting in June of last year, and formed an audit team in July to investigate the affected employees, members, and references, and also held an advisory meeting. It is said that the results of the audit investigation prepared through this process were reported to the chairman on July 8th of this year. Regarding the audit results, the Human Rights Commission’s Administrative Legal Affairs Officer responded, “It has been our basic policy since the report was written not to allow anyone other than the mooring line that approved the report to view the relevant contents, nor to provide an oral explanation.”

Rep. Seo Mi-hwa told the Hankyoreh on the 30th, “When I was serving as a member of the Human Rights Committee, I requested an audit with several members regarding the issue of abuse of power by Commissioner Lee Chung-sang,” and added, “I requested a report on the audit results at the last general meeting of the National Assembly Steering Committee, but they have consistently remained silent. “The Human Rights Commission is only focused on protecting Commissioner Lee Chung-sang,” he criticized.

Reporter Go Gyeong-tae k21@hani.co.kr

Source: Korean