7 out of 26 candidates disqualified in new intensive interview session
During the nation's latest bar examination, seven out of 26 would-be lawyers failed a secondary "in-depth" interview, marking the second time in 10 years for people to be disqualified at the final stage of the notoriously difficult national competition. Such an unprecedented failure rate is mainly due to an intensive interview session introduced for the first time this year. If they did not pass the first interview session, applicants had to undergo a rigorous screening in the new secondary interview, answering questions regarding ethics, citizenship, area of expertise, and ability to express their own opinions. U Byoeng-mun, in charge of personnel affairs at the Ministry of Justice, said of those that failed the new second-phase interview, "Most of the unsuccessful candidates could not answer questions about their area of expertise." One person that failed, for example, was asked what he should do if a person on the street wields his fists without reason. He reportedly answered that he would hit back, saying that the "fist is more immediate than the law" in that instance. The ministry said that there was an applicant that failed because he could not answer basic questions about law. In 2002, there was only one person that failed the (then less rigorous) interview section. In general, those that showed a "vague" stance regarding their ideological stance on issues were required to sit for the second-phase intensive interview, sources said.One person that had to take the intensive secondary interview wrote on an Internet site that he almost had to undergo the secondary interview because he said in his first interview that there is no main enemy of South Korea. "An interviewer told me at the end of the first interview that he wanted to further discuss with me the issue of South Korea' s main enemy in the secondary in-depth interview and asked me if I agreed with his suggestion." Another candidate was allegedly subject to the second-phase session because he answered that the U.S. is the nation's No. 1 enemy, not North Korea. But he was reported to have been successful in his secondary in-depth interview because the interviewers just evaluated his comments as simple anti-U.S sentiment. Another applicant said that he was referred to the second-phase session because he expressed an ambivalent stance on North Korea's nuclear issue. "I should have answered that the North might use a nuclear weapon at any time, but instead I answered that Pyongyang would not take this action, even if its regime were about to collapse," he said. "I believe that my answer led interviewers to think that I am biased in the nuclear matter." The Justice Ministry denied such allegations, saying that the questions are only part of the interview process. "It is too much to say that such questions are designed only to analyze a person's ideological identity." But Song Ho-chan of Lawyers for Democratic Society said that it is "anachronistic" to ask such questions as who is the nation's No. 1 enemy, at a time when even the Defense Ministry abolished the concept of a "No. 1 enemy" in its military yearbook. "Asking things that could be interpreted politically in the interview is itself a problem." Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
