An opposition party lawmaker was accused by a lawyer on Monday for allegedly exercising undue influence to help his son who failed the graduation exam at a law school.
Bae Seung-hee, 33, filed the complaint against Rep. Shin Ki-nam of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office on charges of coercion, abuse of power and obstruction of duty.
There have been media speculations that the 63-year-old visited the dean of Kyung Hee University Law School in Seoul a few days after the school announced the list of eight students who failed the exam, including his son. Those that do not pass are supposed to lose the chance to take the bar exam.
Shin insisted in a press release that it was not meant to pressure school officials but was only to understand the situation as a parent.
Bae criticized Shin for abusing his power in order to make his child a lawyer, despite his status as the people’s representative.
“If a person who did not even pass the graduation test becomes a lawyer, it would be the clients that would eventually become victims,” Bae added. (Yonhap)
