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Yi Hoe-chang

The youngest-ever Supreme Court judge in South Korea who twice ran unsuccessfully for president in 1997 and 2002.

Biography

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YI HOE-CHANG (1935- ). Often referred to as Lee Hoi-chang. Born in South Hwanghae province (now in North Korea), in 1935, Yi grew up in South Korea. He graduated in law from Seoul National University in 1957. He spent many years as a judge in Incheon and Seoul, becoming in 1981 the youngest-ever Supreme Court judge at the age of 46. In 1988, Lee was appointed head of the Central Election Management Committee. In 1993, he became prime minister under President Kim Young-sam. However, he found the position lacked power, and he resigned in 1994, returning to his law practice. In 1996, he entered the National Assembly as a member of the ruling New Korea Party (NKP). The following year, he became the party's chairman.

Following the creation of the Grand National Party (GNP) by the merger of the NKP and the Democratic Party, Yi was the new party's candidate in the 1997 presidential election. However, he failed to beat Kim Dae-jung by a narrow margin. He remained at the head of the GNP, pursuing a conservative agenda against the reforming government of Kim Dae-jung. In particular, Yi and his party expressed much skepticism about Kim's policy toward North Korea.
Although he had a personal reputation for being incorrupt, there was some scandal surrounding the circumstance in which neither of his sons had done military service. Yi was again the GNP's candidate for president in 2002, and was widely expected to win, especially given the party's success in other elections.

To widespread surprise, however, he again failed, losing to Roh Moo-hyun. Following this defeat, Yi resigned from the GNP (and from politics) in December 2002, and in February 2003, announced that he would spend a year at Stanford University in the United States.

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. (Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Korea, by Andrew C. Nahm and James E. Hoare, published by RLPG Books, appears by permission of the author and publisher).

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