On May 10, Prosecutor-turned-Yoon Seok-wook was officially inaugurated as South Korea's president, while former President Moon Jae-in returned to his hometown of Gyeongsangnam-do to begin his retirement. However, at the last state council meeting before leaving office, the Moon jae-in government approved two bills dealing with the reform of the judicial system , amendments to the Prosecutor's Office Act and amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure , which will be formally implemented in September this year after a four-month preview period. According to Yonhap News Agency, this has brought about major changes in the current South Korean criminal justice system that has lasted for 70 years. During Moon's five-year term, he vigorously promoted reforms of the judicial system, including procuratorial reforms, to weaken the overpowered procuratorial system. This was met with a comprehensive resistance from the prosecution system, represented by Yoon Seok-yue, and was the trigger for his parting ways with Moon. But Moon's Common Democratic Party, which holds a majority in parliament, approved the two bills on April 30 and May 3, respectively, and Moon was able to approve them at the end of his term, giving The last blow to Yoon, who had just taken office.
On May 3, Moon entered the final week of his term. In the afternoon, he presided over the last state council meeting of his term of office at the Blue House and adopted amendments to the Law of the Prosecutor's Office and the Law of Criminal Procedure. The two amendments have a four-month teaser period, and with south Korea's local elections in June, prosecutors' direct investigative powers will be maintained until the end of December.
At the heart of both bills is a significant restriction on the prosecutor's direct investigative powers. Moon said the two bills would narrow the scope of the procuratorate's direct investigation to anti-corruption and economic areas, and achieve the separation of the prosecution's investigation from public prosecution, preventing prosecutors from forcing suspects to confess or make statements about other cases that are not related to the case. Previously, the prosecution's direct investigation scope included major crimes stipulated by the presidential decree, such as anti-corruption, economics, public officials, elections, military projects, and large accidents. After the implementation of the new bill, the prosecution will have to hand over the clues of cases involving other areas to the police.
The ultimate goal of the Common Democratic Party is to completely deprive the prosecution of its direct investigative powers. According to Yonhap News Agency, the party plans to form a South Korean version of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Major Crime Investigation, in the next year and a half. This means that the prosecutor's office will become the public prosecution office.
In the Korean judicial system, the Public Prosecutor's Office is an administrative agency subordinate to the Ministry of Justice. South Korea's procuratorial organs are divided into three levels, namely the Grand Prosecutor's Office, the High Prosecutor's Office, and the Local Prosecutor's Office. Although administratively subordinate to the Ministry of Justice, the Public Prosecutor's Office is relatively independent of the Ministry of Justice system and has very much power, and the Minister of Justice does not interfere in the affairs of the Prosecution at will.
South Korean prosecutors control the prosecution of cases and have the power to decide on what charges to prosecute or whether to prosecute. According to the procuratorial guidance investigation system implemented in South Korea, the prosecution can also lead the investigation and evidence collection of the case, and the police cannot handle the case independently without the procuratorate. Moreover, procuratorial organs at all levels have set up special search departments, the general procuratorate office has a central search department, and special procuratorial teams will be set up for major cases.
The powerful procuratorial organs can be described as a "double-edged sword" hanging over South Korean politics. The Central Search Department of the South Korean Prosecutor's Office has led the investigation of the corruption cases of former Presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, the bribery cases involving former President Roh Moo-hyun, and the corruption cases involving Park Geun-hye's cronies and Lee Myung-bak. In this process, the prosecution inevitably became a tool for the conservative and progressive factions in South Korean politics, and there was no shortage of shadows of the prosecutor in the "Blue House Curse".
For more than three decades, there have been voices in South Korea to reform the judicial system in order to weaken the power of prosecutors and increase the power of the police to investigate, thus balancing the power of the judiciary, procuratorates, and police. In response to political chaos such as the repeated liquidation of senior government officials such as former presidents, as early as the mid-1990s, there were calls for the establishment of a high-level public officials investigation office (OMB) in South Korea. After progressive President Roh Moo-hyun came to power in 2003, the reform of the procuratorial system began to be real. At that time, Kang Jin-sil, the first female minister of justice in South Korea's history, had pushed for the establishment of a public investigation office, but was opposed by prosecutors led by then-Attorney General Song Kwang-so.
A close friend and political disciple of Roh, Moon has vigorously pushed for procuratorial reform since coming to power in May 2017. On January 21 last year, the Public Investigation Office, independent of the Prosecutions, was formally established and began operations, which can investigate senior public officials such as the president, the prime minister, members of Parliament, and the president of the Grand Court, and directly prosecute police, prosecutors, judges, etc. Yonhap News Agency reported that this marked the end of the era when South Korean prosecutors were solely in charge of prosecution.
Kim Woo-so, who recently resigned as South Korea's attorney general
【Fighting Method】According to Yonhap News Agency, on April 7, the Kyodo Democratic Party squeezed an unpartisan lawmaker who opposed procuratorial reform out of the Bill Coordination Committee, and with a majority of seats in the National Assembly, launched the reform legislation less than a month ago, and resisted the pressure of all parties to get the above-mentioned debut bill approved in the National Assembly.
This has provoked strong opposition from South Korean prosecutors. On April 17, Attorney General Kim Woo-so submitted his resignation to Moon Jae-in. In a statement on the same day, he apologized to the people and the prosecutor for the contradictions and controversies surrounding the bill on the complete deprivation of the prosecution's investigative powers, assumed responsibility for it and offered his resignation. In fact, Kim Woo-so resigned to show his opposition to the reform of the procuratorial system. But Mr. Moon dismissed his resignation and interviewed him on April 18. On April 19, Kim said he withdrew his intention to resign.
However, on April 22, kim announced his resignation again after south Korean government and opposition accepted a compromise proposed by Congress Speaker Park Byung-seok about depriving prosecutors of their investigative powers. Along with Kim, Kim was also invited to resign, including eight senior prosecutors, namely Park Sung-jin, vice minister of the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, prosecutor general of seoul, Suwon, Daejeon, Gwangju, Daegu, and Busan, and a research commissioner from the Legal Training Institute. Ultimately, Moon accepted Mr. Kim's resignation on May 6, but dismissed it, considering that the resignations of eight officials other than Mr. Kim could trigger gaps in prosecutorial work.
Moon Jae-in and Yoon Seok-yue (right)
A year ago, on May 3, Kim was nominated by Moon Jae-in as the new attorney general, and was formally appointed on the same month on 31 May, for a two-year term beginning on June 1 last year. Now in office for less than a year, Kim is the first supreme prosecutor to resign after former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-wook for opposing the reform of the prosecutorial system.
Yoon Seok-yue announced his resignation as attorney general on March 4 last year to oppose the Establishment of a Major Crime Investigation Agency on the part of the Common Democratic Party. At the time, South Korea's Supreme Prosecutor's Office issued a statement saying it was abolishing the procuratorate's ability to investigate major crimes. Subsequently, Moon accepted Yoon Seok-wook's resignation, and the two parted ways.
Until then, Wen Yin and the two maintained a good cooperative relationship. Yoon Seok-wook has worked for local prosecutors in Daegu, Chuncheon and Suwon, and after the 2012 South Korean election, he was responsible for investigating election interference by the National Intelligence Agency, which was exposed to the negative news of Moon Jae-in and helped Ms. Park win the election. He was demoted for ignoring the instructions of his superiors and not handling the case, and his career was frustrated.
Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak (right) (expansion pack)
Moon re-elected Yoon Seok-wook after coming to power in 2017, appointing him to a key position in the South Korean prosecutions, the head of seoul's Central District Prosecutor's Office, in charge of the investigation of the case of Park Geun-hye's cronies interfering in politics. In addition, Yoon led the investigation into the corruption case of another former president, Lee Myung-bak. In July 2019, Yoon Seok-yue was promoted again, stepping over the position of Director of the High Prosecutor's Office and directly rising from Director of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office to Attorney General.
After Yin Xiyue resigned, his popularity soared and he turned to politics. At the end of June last year, he announced his participation in the 2022 election, criticizing the policies of The Moon's government and shouting about the importance of regime change. A month later, Yin Xiyue joined the National Forces Party, the main force of the largest opposition and conservative camp. In the end, Yoon Seok-yue, who had been in politics for less than a year, won the election in March this year, becoming the first president in South Korean history to have no experience in congress. On March 28, Moon jae-in met with Yoon Seok-yue at the Blue House, and the subject of the conversation became the transition of power.
Cao Guo, who served only 35 days as minister of justice, resigned due to the scandal
【"Disorder Detection"】Around the reform of the procuratorial system, there was a fierce confrontation between the South Korean prosecutors and the legal department of the higher organ of administrative subordination. The Minister of Justice is the first executor of the reforms. Moon's first minister of justice was Park Sang-ki, a senior law professor from Yonsei University in South Korea, who stepped down in early August 2019 in a cabinet reshuffle. Subsequently, Moon nominated his confidant Cao Guo as Minister of Justice.
Cao Guo has served as chief secretary of the Cheong Wa Tai Civil Affairs since May 2017, but after he was nominated, he was immediately investigated by prosecutors for scandals such as his daughter's paper fraud, improper scholarships, and family investment in private equity funds. The nomination of Cao Guo was blocked in parliament due to opposition opposition, and Moon had to bypass the parliament in early September 2019 and forcibly appoint Cao Guo as minister of justice.
But as the scandal continued to simmer, Cao Guo was forced to resign after only 35 days as minister of justice. Cao Guo's plan to rapidly advance the reform of the procuratorial system was shelved, and Moon's judicial reform suffered a major setback. At that time, the contender against Cao Guo was Yin Xiyue, who had just become the procurator general.
Akimi love
In December 2019, Moon nominated Aye Akimi, a judge-turned-judge, to serve as Minister of Justice, who officially took office in early January 2020. Akimi-ae, a grassroots, hard-liner, has experience working in the judicial system, and is a well-known South Korean female politician who was promoted to politics by former President Kim Dae-jung, and later followed Roh Moo-hyun, a political partner with Moon Jae-in, a former member of Parliament and the head of the Common Democratic Party.
Through this appointment, Moon Jae-in has set up a posture of vigorously promoting the reform of the procuratorial system in the second half of his term. Sure enough, after Akimi fell in love with her appointment, she pushed to remove the prosecutor's command of the police investigation. She also adjusted 32 senior officials at the level of chief procurator through bright promotions and dark demotions, many of whom were Yin Xiyue's subordinates. After a series of "overhead" operations and reform actions, the contradiction between Yin Xiyue and Qiu Mei'ai intensified.
In September 2020, when Akimi's son was on illegal leave during his military service, she herself was accused of using her influence to pressure the Ministry of Defense, and prosecutors immediately stepped in to investigate. Later, from November to December 2020, Akimi Ai ordered Yin Xiyue to suspend and punish him for the first time in history, triggering a collective protest by prosecutors at all levels; Yin Xiyue applied to the court to suspend the suspension order and launched an administrative lawsuit, which was finally reinstated. The fight was called "insurgency" by the South Korean media, and Moon Jae-in had to apologize to the people for it, and Akimi Ai chose to resign.
Yoon Seok-wook shook hands with Moon Jae-in at the inauguration of South Korea's new president on May 10.
At the end of January, Lawmaker Park, a member of Parliament with judicial experience, became the fourth minister of justice in Moon Jae-in's government. On May 3, after Moon jae-in passed the two bills at the State Council, Park Fan-jae came forward to explain that the two bills passed by the National Assembly were weak and should be passed at the State Council.
However, according to Yonhap News Agency, the survey results released by four polling agencies in South Korea on the 5th showed that 52% of the respondents had a negative attitude towards the amendment passed by the National Assembly to reduce the direct investigation power of the procuratorate, and only 33% were positive. Meanwhile, 52 percent of respondents believe that yoon Seok Yue's government should be helped to govern by supporting the National Forces Party in june local elections, and 13 percent believe that the New Government needs to be contained by supporting the Common Democratic Party.
When Yin Xiyue came to power, he was faced with the situation of "the government is ino and the big one", and if the Common Democratic Party occupies the majority of the seats in the national assembly, it will form a great restriction on his administration. As an opponent of the reform of the procuratorial system, it remains to be seen how Yoon Seok-yue will respond to Moon Jae-in's "final blow."