Lee Tahney

Lee was born in Seoul in 1978.[1] He attended Garak High School and obtained a bachelor's degree in law at Seoul National University.[1] He earned Master of Laws degree at Harvard University in the United States.[1]

After qualifying for the bar in 2002, Lee graduated from the Judicial Research and Training Institute in 2005.[1][2][3] He was firstly appointed a judge at Suwon District Court in 2008 and worked for 2 years.[2] Then, he moved to Seoul Central District Court (2010–2012), Gwangju District Court (2012–2014) and Jeju District Court (2015–2016).[2] He returned to Suwon District Court in 2016.[2] He was briefly a barrister at the Korean Public Interest Lawyers Group from 2019[2] to 2020, till he joined the politics.

In 2017, Lee was appointed the Deputy Director-General of the National Court Administration.[1][3] Shortly after this, he had found out some documents, such as the Judiciary Blacklist and the Dissolution Plan of the Institute of International Human Rights Law; both are related to the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Yang Sung-tae.[1][3] He then submitted a resignation letter in order to protest against the judicial scandal, although the letter was rejected.[1][3] However, this incident has contributed for the judicial reform, including the detention of the ex-Chief Justice.[1][3]

On 19 January 2020, Lee was brought to the ruling Democratic Party.[1][3] A month later, he was nominated for Yongin 4th constituency, where the incumbent was Pyo Chang-won of the same party.[4] In the election on 15 April, he received 53.46% and defeated the United Future candidate Kim Bum-soo.[5]

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