Choo Mi-ae: "This Prosecutor Personnel Resignation Is the Lowest... Evaluation Is Good"

Prosecutor Personnel Affairs: "Providing Promotion Opportunities Fairly"
"Personnel issues arise when things don't go as desired"
"There has never been a personnel decision with 100% satisfaction in history"

Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae is entering the conference room to attend a press briefing held at the Gyeonggi Government Gwacheon Complex on the 11th. / Gwacheon - Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae said on the 11th, "This prosecution personnel reshuffle is being evaluated as the one with the fewest resignations."

Minister Choo held a press briefing at the Government Complex Gwacheon in the afternoon and stated, "There is no personnel reshuffle that satisfies 100% of people." She added, "While the previous reshuffle focused on specific departments, this one is meaningful in that it provided promotion opportunities more evenly. In particular, it properly evaluated and gave promotion opportunities to prosecutors who quietly worked in the trial divisions."

Earlier, the Ministry of Justice announced a personnel reshuffle last month that replaced the entire leadership investigating the current administration's misconduct. In the senior prosecutor-level reshuffle, Han Dong-hoon, former head of the Anti-Corruption and Violence Division at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office who oversaw the investigation into the Cho Kuk family corruption allegations, was transferred to Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Busan High Prosecutors' Office. Park Chan-ho, former head of the Public Investigation Division at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office who led the investigation into the Blue House's alleged interference in the Ulsan mayoral election, was appointed Chief Prosecutor of the Jeju District Prosecutors' Office.

Subsequently, in the mid-level personnel reshuffle, investigative practitioners such as Shin Bong-soo, former 2nd Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, Song Kyung-ho, 3rd Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, and Ko Hyung-gon, former head of the Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 2 at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, were demoted to local offices. Many executives at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, including senior researcher Yang Seok-jo of the Anti-Corruption Division, were also replaced. All of these figures were known as the so-called 'Yoon Seok-yeol faction,' who had continued investigations targeting the current administration.

Regarding these personnel changes by the Ministry of Justice, some in the legal community described them as 'cutting off Yoon Seok-yeol's aides' and a 'prosecutorial massacre.' There were also remarks that these were retaliatory personnel moves against investigations into the current administration. In fact, looking at precedents of past regular prosecution personnel reshuffles, it was unprecedented for the prosecution chief's aides to be dismissed all at once like this.

However, Minister Choo offered a different evaluation from these views on the same day. She said, "Those who got what they wanted have no complaints, and those who did not have complaints. Although not everyone is satisfied, this reshuffle had the fewest resignations and has been evaluated internally as acceptable."