Although the fiercest "judicial storm" in South Korea's history has shaken the foundations of political factions, it is still helpless in the face of chaebols at the level of the "Three-Star Republic".
▲ On January 18 this year, Lee Jae-yong, vice president of Samsung Electronics, arrived at the Seoul High Court in South Korea. Image source: Xinhua News Agency
Text | Pottery short room
On August 9, south Korea's Ministry of Justice announced that Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics, will be released on parole on the 13th for "Fuller Returns Amnesty".
"False" release and "true release"
On February 17, 2017, Lee Jae-yong, then 48, was charged with bribery and perjury, including injecting nearly $700,000 into a foundation controlled by former President Park Geun-hye's close friend Choi Soon-sil in exchange for Park Geun-hye's support for a controversial merger by Samsung's subsidiary. Lee Jae-yong was arrested by the Seoul District Court in South Korea and formally indicted on February 28 of the same year.
On August 25 of the same year, the Seoul District Court sentenced Lee to five years in prison, which was commuted to two and a half years and suspended for four years on February 5 of the following year, and Lee was released in court; on August 29, 2019, the Supreme Court of South Korea ruled that Lee Jae-yong's bribery charges were "sent back to the court of second instance for retrial"; on January 18, 2021, the Seoul District Court changed the sentence again, and Lee Jae-yong's two-and-a-half-year sentence became a real sentence, and he was re-arrested and sent back to prison at the court; on February 17, the South Korean Ministry of Justice announced, Lee is not allowed to work within the Samsung Group for 5 years from the date of his sentence.
Korean Restoration Day began in 1945, and every time it was Celebrated, the Korean Ministry of Justice would grant amnesty to a group of detainees as a sign of "universal celebration". In 2020, South Korea's Ministry of Justice granted amnesty to more than 600 detainees, and this year the number has increased to 810. In an amnesty statement, South Korea's Ministry of Justice said Lee "performed well in prison and there was a strong public willingness to parole Lee," and that he "had served 60 percent of his prescribed sentence and met the conditions for parole in South Korea," and therefore "made this decision after a comprehensive review."
However, Lee's lawsuit is far from settled: On Aug. 12, the day before parole, a lawsuit related to a $3.9 billion accounting fraud allegation against Samsung's biopharmaceutical division was heard in Seoul District Court. Some people in judicial circles believe that this lawsuit is a protective lawsuit provoked by Samsung on its own initiative to win the early release of Lee Jae-yong. Because of this, some opponents of Lee Jae-yong's release not without sarcasm said that this time Lee Jae-yong was "really released" instead of "fake" release.
Extra-string sounds and extra-legal meanings
From a judicial perspective alone, Lee's parole is controversial: about 70% of respondents in the poll data support Lee's parole, but this does not constitute a sufficient condition for parole of a detainee. "Good performance in prison" is even more "unfounded", and the real rigid indicator is to achieve the "hard yardstick" of "serving three-fifths of the sentence".
However, Lee was sentenced to prison on August 25, 2017, and released on February 5 of the following year on a suspended sentence, and was not remanded until January 18 this year. The actual number one person in the Samsung Group, who was supposed to serve 30 months in prison, spent less than 13 months in jail.
Lee Jae-yong is jokingly called the "Samsung Republic" south Korea's largest chaebol, the actual number one person in the Samsung Group, because his father Lee Ken-hee died of illness on October 25 last year, and although all the important positions of the Samsung Group have been filled, in fact, family members are competing with each other, resulting in a leaderless group.
South Korea has been plagued by chaebol politics since its restoration, and several major chaebols have jointly controlled the entire lifeblood of the Korean economy. In the meantime, the vigorous "anti-corruption" and "anti-chaebol" movements often end up with loud thunder and little rain. After democratization, most presidents come from civilian origins, and instead of being a plutocrat, they have fallen victim to their struggles.
The "Girlfriend Gate" related case that led to Lee's imprisonment involved a criminal case involving former South Korean President Park Geun-hye herself. At the beginning of her tenure, Park Geun-hye also shouted slogans of "economic democratization" and "de-chaebolization", but the result was ironic - Lee Jae-yong has been released from prison twice, but Park Geun-hye, like most surviving former presidents, still has to "sit on the bottom of the prison".
One of the hallmarks of the "judicial storm" of incumbent President Moon Jae-in, who claimed to have "ended the chaebol era," was the "back trial" of Lee Jae-yong's case, and the subsequent re-entry of Lee Jae-yong, who was on probation, back to prison. But now, Lee Jae-yong has once again been "paroleed" to show that the fiercest and resolute "judicial storm" in South Korean history can shake the previously unshakable foundation of political factions, but still can't help the plutocrats of the "Three-Star Republic".
As the "largest chaebol among the chaebols", the "Samsung Republic" accounts for 1/5 of the South Korean economy and covers all fields. Analysts pointed out that due to the entanglement of South Korean chaebols such as Samsung in South Korea, all walks of life and tens of millions of people have become "stakeholders" on their own, and employment, livelihood, industry, transaction related and other aspects are inevitably at a loss to the "Samsung Republic".
Since Li Jianxi, Li Zairong's father and son and many important members of the Lee family have been deeply involved in various "official wrongs", Samsung Group has repeatedly assumed a "bitter meat plan" posture of "lying flat and not doing anything", creating a favorable atmosphere of "Li Zairong can not go to prison and his life is not born". The Federation of Korean Industries, where the chaebols gather, played the role of "fishing for people". The US government and public and multinational companies are afraid that Samsung's new investment in the united states to set up a chip factory in the United States will be lost, and has recently spared no effort to lobby the Moon jae-in government to "raise its noble hand".
One is to consider that Samsung continues to "lie flat", which will endanger South Korea's economic competitiveness, employment situation and international relations; second, the "judicial storm" has been blocked, the ruling party has suffered heavy setbacks in the previous local elections, and the next general election is imminent, and Moon Jae-in has to consider more. In this context, Lee Jae-yong's "parole and release" of "flaws in the procedure and doubts about the process" has become a fact.
On June 8, 2020, Lee Jae-yong arrived at the Seoul Central District Court to prepare for his appearance. Image source: Xinhua News Agency
The trees want to be quiet and the wind is not stopping
Mr. Moon and the ruling party's intention was to release Mr. Lee, mixed with 809 other detainees, in a way that would be low-key and unobtrusive.
However, the trees want to be quiet and the wind is not stopping.
Numerous groups that support severe punishment of the chaebol and oppose their domination of South Korea's politics, economy and society are outraged, accusing Moon of being "hypocritical" and "superficially shouting democracy, but in fact compromising with oligarchs."
Most of these groups are the traditional core support groups of Moon Jae-in and the ruling party, and they are in a big position to anger the ruling party out of dissatisfaction with Lee's release, such as Kim Ju-ho, the head of the organization called "People's Unity and Participation in Democracy", who said that in view of Lee's "improper release", they would "reconsider" their support for the ruling party in the election.
Many judicial experts and political commentators are worried that Lee's commutation of his sentence in just a few years, his release and release of his sentence will give people at home and abroad a strong impression that "there are always exceptions to the Korean judiciary," thus seriously shaking the credibility of the South Korean judicial system and the South Korean government.
On the other hand, the "Samsung Republic" may not necessarily "receive what is good". Lee and Samsung refused to admit any charges, and the "reversal" movements were endless. Not only that, under the circumstance that Lee Jae-yong's 5-year "ban" of "not allowing him to serve in the Samsung Group" is still valid, whether the Samsung Group has violated the yin and yang, "bowed to the curtain", publicly requested the Minister of Justice for "special approval", or played the old trick of "lying flat and threatening", it may further stimulate the public nerves that have been highly sensitive to Lee Jae-yong's parole, adding more variables to the political and social situation in South Korea before and after the election.
Contributing Writer | Tao Short Room (Columnist)
Edit | Li Xiaoxiao
Intern | Wei Yingzi
Proofreading | Liu Jun