Munchan Seok, Chief Prosecutor of Gwangju District, Says "Pushing Talent Aside, 'Pro-Administration Figures' and 'Choo Mi-ae's Prosecutors' at the Forefront"
[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] On the 8th, Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae expressed her stance on her Facebook regarding the prosecutor general promotion personnel reshuffle carried out the previous day, stating that “specific factions or specific groups are wrong” and that the phrase “someone’s faction” should disappear.
This is interpreted to mean that, instead of promoting special investigation prosecutors known as the so-called Yoon Seok-yeol faction, prosecutors from the criminal and trial departments were promoted or appointed to key positions.
However, this is pointed out to be far from the legal community’s evaluation that prosecutors classified as the pro-government ‘Choo Mi-ae line’ or ‘Lee Seong-yoon line’ have occupied key positions in the Ministry of Justice or the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, effectively isolating Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol.
◆Minister Choo: “Considering organizational balance and regional origin”… Self-praise as ‘fair personnel reshuffle’= Minister Choo posted a lengthy message on her Facebook that morning, beginning with “Personnel is everything! That’s right.”
She pointed out, “The phrase ‘someone’s faction’ in the prosecution should now disappear,” and “From the start, specific factions or groups were wrong.”
She continued, “The idea that one must belong to a certain academic background or network to succeed should also disappear,” and “The appointments were not based on unexpected personnel choices predicted by the media, but rather on those who quietly honed their expertise and earned trust from superiors and subordinates.”
Minister Choo also revealed four criteria that served as the basis for deciding the promoted prosecutor generals in this reshuffle.
She stated, “The principles for prosecutor general promotions are: first, personnel must be able to carry out prosecutorial reform; second, to balance the organization by shifting from special and public security divisions that have monopolized key positions to criminal and trial departments; third, to evenly distribute regional origins; and fourth, to continuously provide promotion opportunities to outstanding female prosecutors.”
Finally, Minister Choo concluded her message by saying, “The message of this personnel reshuffle is to give hope and encouragement to the majority of prosecutors who work quietly without any connections.”
◆Legal community’s evaluation 180 degrees different from Minister Choo’s= Meanwhile, despite Minister Choo’s positive self-assessment of this reshuffle, the legal community has issued completely opposite evaluations.
Following the previous reshuffle, there are concerns that key aides of Prosecutor General Yoon were removed from important positions regardless of ability, and prosecutors who showed a passive stance toward investigations related to the current government or revealed pro-government tendencies were openly appointed to key posts, making further related investigations practically difficult.
Although Minister Choo publicly stated that specific factions or groups are wrong, in reality, prosecutors who can be classified as belonging to the ‘Choo Mi-ae line’ or ‘Lee Seong-yoon line’ were promoted or appointed to important positions. In particular, even prosecutors who are widely seen as having mishandled important investigations were promoted to prosecutor general, sending a message to prosecutors that loyalty rather than ability is the standard for personnel decisions.
Examining the details of the personnel reshuffle reveals that such evaluations are not exaggerated.
◆Massive replacement of Supreme Prosecutors’ Office executives including the Deputy Prosecutor General… Completion of isolating Prosecutor General Yoon= First, the appointment of Cho Nam-gwan, Director of the Ministry of Justice’s Prosecutor’s Office, as Deputy Prosecutor General stands out. Cho, who has served as the Prosecutor’s Office Director acting as a bridge between the Ministry of Justice and the prosecution and has assisted Minister Choo, is considered a strong candidate for the next Prosecutor General along with Lee Seong-yoon, Chief Prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
Cho, who served as head of the special inspection team under the Blue House Civil Affairs Office during the Roh Moo-hyun administration and worked alongside President Moon Jae-in, has been rapidly promoted since becoming a prosecutor general under the current government.
Promoting him to Senior Prosecutor General and placing him close to Prosecutor General Yoon is evaluated as a personnel move that can hardly be explained other than as a check on Prosecutor General Yoon.
Minister Choo replaced a significant number of prosecutor general-level executives in the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office who were considered Prosecutor General Yoon’s close aides in the previous reshuffle. Now, by appointing Cho, who is difficult to work with for Prosecutor General Yoon, as Deputy Prosecutor General, it appears that Prosecutor General Yoon has been completely isolated.
The Deputy Prosecutor General works closely with the Prosecutor General on almost all schedules, sharing concerns and opinions when the Prosecutor General makes major decisions. Therefore, this position is usually appointed to the person the Prosecutor General trusts most and often serves throughout the Prosecutor General’s term.
Shin Sung-sik, the 3rd Deputy Prosecutor General who has assisted Chief Prosecutor Lee Seong-yoon at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, was promoted and appointed as head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Anti-Corruption and Serious Crimes Division, which directs special investigations nationwide.
Lee Jong-geun, the 1st Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office, who previously served as a policy aide to former Minister Park Sang-ki and was appointed to the Ministry of Justice’s Prosecutorial Reform Promotion Support Group during former Minister Cho Kuk’s tenure, was promoted and appointed as head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Criminal Division, overseeing investigations of complaints and accusations nationwide.
Lee Jung-hyun, the 1st Deputy Chief Prosecutor who also assisted Chief Prosecutor Lee Seong-yoon at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, was promoted and appointed as head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Public Security Investigation Division, which directs public security investigations nationwide.
Besides the Deputy Prosecutor General, the three most important positions directing frontline prosecution investigations in the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office were filled not by people who can work in harmony with Prosecutor General Yoon, but by those who are considered people of Chief Prosecutor Lee Seong-yoon or the current government, who are at odds with Prosecutor General Yoon.
Additionally, Shim Jae-cheol, current head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Anti-Corruption and Serious Crimes Division, was appointed as Prosecutor’s Office Director at the Ministry of Justice, responsible for important tasks such as personnel and budget and acting as a bridge with the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office. Shim was the person who opposed indicting former Minister Cho Kuk during the investigation of the Yoo Jae-soo cover-up case and proposed excluding Prosecutor General Yoon from leading the investigation team.
As a result, Prosecutor General Yoon now faces difficulties both in directing frontline investigations through Supreme Prosecutors’ Office executives who should assist him closely and in coordinating opinions with the Ministry of Justice on important issues through the Prosecutor’s Office Director.
◆Personnel reshuffle based on ‘favoring allies’ rather than ‘reward and punishment’= The legal community points out that one of the biggest problems with this reshuffle is that it is a personnel move rewarding allies rather than based on ‘reward and punishment’ according to the results of important investigations.
This criticism mainly arises from the personnel decisions regarding the leadership of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
Above all, the ‘media collusion’ investigation, which received recommendations from the Prosecutorial Investigation Deliberation Committee to ‘stop investigation’ and ‘not prosecute’ Chief Prosecutor Han Dong-hoon, and which prosecuted former Channel A reporter Lee Dong-jae without even mentioning the collusion relationship with Chief Prosecutor Han in the indictment, can only be evaluated as a ‘failed investigation’ unless a ‘smoking gun’ emerges to overturn the situation.
Recently, an incident involving a physical altercation by Jeong Jin-woong, head of the Criminal 1 Division at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, occurred during the seizure and search of Chief Prosecutor Han’s cellphone SIM card.
However, Lee Jung-hyun, the 1st Deputy Chief Prosecutor who led this investigation, was promoted to prosecutor general and assigned to the key position of head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Public Security Investigation Division.
Kim Kwan-jung, head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Criminal Division, who maintained a stance opposite to Prosecutor General Yoon on the ‘media collusion’ case and supported Chief Prosecutor Lee Seong-yoon’s position, was promoted to Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office Chief Prosecutor, the most senior prosecutor general among the four regional prosecutors’ offices.
Similarly, the ‘Samsung Bio’ case investigation, which also received recommendations from the Prosecutorial Investigation Deliberation Committee to ‘stop investigation’ and ‘not prosecute’ Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, cannot be regarded as a successful investigation. This remains true even if the prosecution ignores the committee’s opinion and proceeds with indictment.
Nevertheless, Shin Sung-sik, the 3rd Deputy Prosecutor General who led this investigation, was promoted to prosecutor general and took the key position of head of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s Anti-Corruption and Serious Crimes Division.
Despite these circumstances, Chief Prosecutor Lee Seong-yoon, who is in the command line of both cases, was retained. Moreover, Lee is partly responsible for the recent leak of the late Mayor Park Won-soon’s suspect information.
Kim Han-gyu, a lawyer who served as president of the Seoul Bar Association, wrote on his Facebook after the personnel reshuffle was announced, “The investigation into the media collusion allegations (tentatively) failed to prove the ‘media’ part. Nevertheless, the deputy chief who led the investigation was promoted to prosecutor general. Prosecutors who aggressively investigated politically charged cases like PD Notebook or the Minerva case have prospered. This kind of personnel reshuffle is exactly what prosecutorial reform is against...”
This can be seen as criticism of the unfairness of this reshuffle by comparing it to past cases where prosecutors who conducted aggressive investigations and prosecutions tailored to the regime’s tastes ended up with acquittals and ‘failed investigations’ but were not demoted; rather, they were promoted and prospered.
On the other hand, Moon Chan-seok, Chief Prosecutor of the Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office, who publicly criticized Chief Prosecutor Lee Seong-yoon for not following Prosecutor General Yoon’s instructions, was demoted to Planning Director at the Judicial Research and Training Institute, where newly appointed prosecutor generals are assigned, in the personnel reshuffle announced the previous day.
He is regarded as a representative ‘special investigation prosecutor’ within the prosecution and recognized for his expertise in ‘financial crime’ investigations, having been the first in Korea to be selected as a 1st-grade certified specialist prosecutor known as a ‘black belt.’
Having tendered his resignation the previous day, he expressed strong dissatisfaction with this reshuffle through the prosecution’s internal computer network on the day.
In his post on the internal network, he pointed out, “Just as talented people overflow like rivers everywhere, there are many righteous talents in the prosecution as well. It is worrisome and shameful that, despite these many talents, this reshuffle blatantly puts prosecutors who receive biased evaluations from the media as ‘pro-government personnel’ or ‘Choo Mi-ae’s prosecutors’ at the forefront.”
Minister Choo’s weakening of Prosecutor General Yoon’s power is expected to continue through the mid-level prosecutor personnel reshuffle, with predictions that the Deputy Prosecutor General positions such as spokesperson, considered the Prosecutor General’s ‘mouth,’ and the Investigation Information Policy Officer, considered the ‘ears,’ will be abolished or downgraded to department head level through organizational restructuring.
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