Inogong Deputy Minister of Justice Resigns... First Female Deputy Chief Prosecutor from Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office

Innogong, Deputy Minister of Justice who was the first female Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, will resign on the 18th, 20 months after taking office. Since December 21 last year, when former Minister of Justice Han Dong-hoon moved to the position of Emergency Response Chairman of the People Power Party, Deputy Minister Innogong has been acting as the Minister of Justice.

Inogong, Deputy Minister of Justice. / Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

If a successor to Deputy Minister Innogong is not appointed immediately, Kwon Soon-jung, Director of Planning and Coordination at the Ministry of Justice, will act as the Minister of Justice according to the organizational hierarchy.

Deputy Minister Innogong began her career as a prosecutor in 1997 and became the first female 4th Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in 2018, when President Yoon Seok-yeol was the head of the office. The following year, she was appointed head of the Seongnam branch office, a typical promotion path to becoming a chief prosecutor.

Deputy Minister Innogong is from Incheon and graduated from Yeongrak High School and Yonsei University with a degree in law. She completed her master's degree in law at the same university's graduate school. She passed the 36th Judicial Examination in 1994 and completed the 26th Judicial Research and Training Institute, entering the prosecution service in 1997 as a prosecutor at the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office Seongnam branch.

Since then, Deputy Minister Innogong has held key positions within the prosecution, including prosecutor at the Ministry of Justice Legal Affairs Office, head of the Criminal Division 2 at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, head of the Trial Division 3 at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, head of the Yeongdong branch of the Cheongju District Prosecutors' Office, head of the Criminal Division 3 at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office, and Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Bucheon branch of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office.

Although Deputy Minister Innogong was a strong candidate for promotion to chief prosecutor, she was sidelined in the first personnel reshuffle after former Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae took office in 2020. She then submitted her resignation and left the prosecution, moving to a position as a partner lawyer at the law firm Sejong.