The confrontation of the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Korea Choo Mi-ae, who openly defends corruption scandals associated with the President’s entourage, and Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, reached a high point in late November – early December of 2020.
From the author’s point of view, it all started when Yoon Seok-youl ranked first on the list of potential presidential candidates for the first time in a poll conducted between November 7th and 9th, with 24.7%. Against this backdrop, on November 5th, the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into allegations that Attorney General Yoon Seok-youl’s wife was involved in bribery and stock manipulation. The reasons are the accusations made by Choo Kang-wook of the Open Democratic Party earlier this year.
On November 11th, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said both sides should work to de-escalate the situation, which Chung said has caused public discomfort. Yoon should have some composure and Choo’s rhetoric should be more trained.
On November 24, the prosecutor’s office indicted the mother-in-law of the Attorney General on charges of medical violation and fraud. In November 2012, a 74-year-old woman named Choe allegedly set up a medical foundation to run a long-term care hospital for the elderly, although she was not qualified to do so.
The Choe case investigation began in April when several plaintiffs, including MP Choe Kang-wook, filed a complaint that Yoon had used his influence to protect Choe. The prosecution, however, dismissed the charges against Yoon, citing lack of evidence.
However, on November 24th, 2020, Choo Mi-Ae removed the Attorney General from her duties: “The Ministry investigated various charges against the Chief Attorney and found some serious misconduct,” she said during a briefing.
Now, the decision on Yoon should be made by the disciplinary committee, which includes the Minister of Justice, his deputy, two representatives of the prosecutor’s office and three external experts, who were appointed in advance. There are five possible solutions: from the actual dismissal to the reprimand, in which Yoon remains in his post.
The minister cited a number of reasons. Many legal experts note that the accusations against Yoon appear exaggerated, distorted, or taken out of context. This is also evidenced by the fact that during a hastily organized press conference, Choо refused to answer journalists’ questions and did not elaborate on some passages of her accusations.
Not surprisingly, in response to such lingering accusations, both the prosecutor’s office and sane officials from the Ministry of Justice stood behind Yoon. On November 26th, prosecutors across the country held emergency meetings to discuss Yoon’s dismissal and show support for him.
“The actions of the Minister of Justice seriously undermine the rule of law and violate the independence of the prosecutor’s office.” 59 out of 60 district attorneys’ offices nationwide, and even prosecutors at the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office, which Choo Mi-Ae planted with individuals loyal to the President, declared that the order to fire Yoon undermines the prosecution’s political neutrality.
Even the Acting Attorney General Cho Nam-Kwang, who was one of Choo Mi-Ae’s appointees, pointed out the illegality of Yoon Seok Yeol’s removal and demanded that the Justice Minister overturn his decision. Cho stated that he and most of the other prosecutors are convinced that their boss did not commit any offenses serious enough to justify his removal.
The Justice Department Inspection Committee also sided with Yoon. The Prosecutor General was not properly informed of the charges against him in advance and he was not given sufficient time to clarify his position. In addition, the Inspection Committee stated that there were “significant procedural deficiencies” in Choo’s order.
Deputy Minister of Justice Ko Gi-Yong, who was supposed to chair the meeting of the disciplinary committee, demonstratively resigned (Choo Mi-Ae herself cannot do this, because her feud with Yoon is too superficial). The resignation was accepted, and on December 2, the president installed Lee Yong-Goo. Lee has no experience in the prosecutor’s office, but he served as Deputy Minister of Justice for Legal Affairs for two years and eight months. Therefore, the conservative media call him “the government’s advocate”.
Because of all this, the meeting of the disciplinary committee has been postponed more than once for an ever longer period – first to the 2nd of December, then to the 4th, then to the 10th. Technically, so that Yoon would have time to answer the accusations.
Meanwhile, on November 25, Yoon Seok-Yeol filed a lawsuit with the Seoul Administrative Court. In his complaint, he argued that the charges brought against him by the Minister were largely untrue and exaggerated. Putting forward point by point refutation of these suspicions, he also said that, even if they were true, they were not serious enough to warrant a suspension.
On December 1st, the Seoul court granted the preliminary injunction requested by the attorney general in connection with his removal from office. The court agreed with the thesis that the removal of Yoon from duty was tantamount to his dismissal, which damaged the basic principles of the neutrality and independence of the prosecution. The injunction will be effective up to 30 days after another court ruling was issued, and shortly after the court’s ruling announcement Yoon returned to his job at the prosecutor’s office and said he would do “everything he could to protect the spirit of the Constitution.”
Of course, the question immediately turned out to be politicized. On November 25, the head of the ruling Democratic Party and former Prime Minister Lee Nak Young said that “the accusations made by the Ministry of Justice are shocking” and ordered the party to consider conducting a parliamentary inquiry into the matter.
The main opposition party, People’s Power, expressed its opposition to the Justice Department’s accusations, and also suggested that the president was responsible for the friction between Choo and Yoon getting out of hand.
According to media reports, “Yoon should be severely punished for committing serious misconduct or violation of professional ethics. However, the reasons given seem to be unconvincing excuses aimed at getting him to resign. These are just vague statements that do not have sufficient evidence. It is wrong to suspend the Attorney General from office on unverified charges”.
Newspapers note that even during the military dictatorship in the 1970s, no Minister of Justice ever took such anachronistic actions against the head of the law enforcement agency. According to them, Choo Mi-Ae “abused her power to block prosecution investigations of delicate cases involving figures close to President Moon Jae-In”. Not even the most conservative “The Korea Times” came out with the headline: “Minister of Justice must resign, President Moon must apologize to the people. “
And what about Moon Jae-In? – About an hour after Choo’s announcement, the presidential office issued a statement saying Moon had been informed of the move, but “the president had nothing concrete to say about it.
But the president kept silent, although the conservative “Chunang Ilbo” openly wrote that he “must clearly state his position. Otherwise, he will be remembered as a coward in our presidential history.” Only on December 3, Moon Jae-In pointed to the seriousness of the issue and stressed the importance of procedural rationale and fairness in deciding whether to bring Yoon to disciplinary responsibility. That is, he did not say anything, although it is known that on December 1st, the President met with the Minister of Justice to discuss the escalation of political tension in connection with the dismissal of the Prosecutor General.
Some media reports suggest that President Moon and Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun discussed the simultaneous resignation of Yoon and Choo, as clashes between them create unnecessary political unrest between rival parties and impede other government affairs. However, this scenario does not seem viable, since both persons involved intend to continue to work in their posts. Other rumors say that if the president wants to keep the idea of reforming the prosecutor’s office, Choo should be fired, and even representatives of the Democratic Party are in favor of this.
How would the author summarize the preliminary results of this story and explain the motives of the Blue House? – It is clear that the removal of the attorney general from his duties and the high probability of initiating a criminal case against him is not the most successful step of the administration of Moon Jae-in, but here it seems that the president’s inner circle decided that this would be the lesser evil.
Yes, the dismissed prosecutor will gain a reputation as an honest campaigner who was unfairly accused, but with a fair amount of control of the press and a love of fabrication of data, it is possible that this image will still be tarnished. In addition, although the conservatives are eyeing him, there have been no direct negotiations between the parties yet, and experts understand that for the Force of the People this will be a forced choice due to the fact that its own candidates are too low in the rating.
But if you give Yoon the freedom to dig high-profile cases, then the number of scandals can really turn into quality. Let’s remember a few high-profile stories, each of which by itself still cannot knock a chair out from under Moon, but their combination is quite capable of doing this.
First, this is the case of Kim Kyung-Soo, who still went to jail. And although he will be considered the governor until the verdict is approved by the Supreme Court, the prosecutor’s office seems to be preparing a new package of incriminating documents that confirm not only the fact of manipulating public opinion before the presidential elections, but also the use of fake commentators or cheating likes both before and after that time.
Secondly, this is the Lime Asset case and especially the Optimus Asset one, where access to Moon’s inner circle is seen much more clearly, and the likelihood that the money of the deceived investors replenished secret funds cannot be ruled out.
Thirdly, this is the story of how, as a result of data manipulation, a nuclear reactor was closed – in fact, simply because the president expressed such a wish, and this is against the background of the problems faced by the energy industry under Moon, with whose efforts, due to the desire to close Nuclear power plant, smog in Seoul has become a commonplace.
Fourthly, there are stories about the intervention of the Blue House in a number of local elections, first of all, the election of the mayor of Ulsan: the direct actions of the presidential administration to support its own people and drain compromising evidence on political opponents were made public. Any of these stories, perhaps, surpass the scandals of the times of Park Geun-hye in odiousness and, if desired, could well inflate into a large-scale campaign with mass rallies in the style of “Candle revolution”.
Fifthly, the investigation continues into former Justice Minister Cho Kuk and his family. His wife, Professor Jung Kyung-Sim, appears to have been definitively exposed for the influence trade that brought her daughter to a prestigious university through forged records of her career as a young scientist. The rest of the corruption activities that related to the activities of Cho Kuk both as a minister and as a secretary to the president are under proof.
At the same time, Moon Jae-In has problems associated with the ability to actively switch attention from these problems to more “massively entertaining” ones. Inter-Korean cooperation remains at an impasse, and the change of administration in the United States rather complicates the likelihood that some projects of inter-Korean cooperation will be sanctioned by Washington. Anti-Japanese hysteria is fizzling out, firstly, because the losses from the pandemic have overshadowed the trade war, and secondly, due to the fact that the regular beating of drums under the banner of women for consolation or victims of forced labor is partially interrupted by scandals concerning “business on grandmothers” …
Finally, the emergence of the third wave of coronavirus with an average number of cases of 300-500 people per day and the inability to write off, as it was last time, the increase in the number of infected to another conservative Protestant sect, undermines Moon’s ability to successfully sell the successes of the government of Republic of Korea in the fight against the pandemic. Moreover, this is supplemented by a number of stories about the poor state of the country’s health care system, for example, about defective influenza vaccines, which the authorities still considered possible to inject the elderly with, considering this option the lesser evil.
Against such a political background, removing an overly zealous Attorney General is a perfectly rational action. Should Yoon get fired, the next Attorney general will be the obedient Lee Sung-Yoon, the head of the Seoul Central Procuratorate Prosecutor’s Office. And Moon’s regime will “lift off the floor” a rather unpleasant rival, against whom a usual set of political accusations will not work.
If Yoon remains in his post, then after he finishes his job as a prosecutor, we may face a big round of Game of Thrones.
The author wants to end the text with a quote from the editorial of “JGFU”: ”It would be a shame if the Moon administration repeated the same mistakes of the ousted President Pak. Keep in mind that corruption breeds corruption, and a corrupt regime in eventually ends in failure.”
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, a leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
