Attention is turning to the next moves of the Justice Ministry's Committee on Human Rights and the Future of the Prosecution after Lee Jung-hyun, acting prosecutor general and deputy chief of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, said the panel's fact-finding results should be reviewed when asked whether charges against President Lee Jae-myung could be withdrawn.
According to legal circles on the 25th, Lee told reporters on his first day at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the 23rd that "a fact-finding investigation is under way at the investigation team, so it seems we will need to review the results," when asked about the possibility of dropping the charges.
While the response signaled he would first check the findings rather than state a position on withdrawing the charges, observers inside and outside the prosecution have noted that Lee did not rule out the possibility.
The committee's fact-finding team is examining allegations of human rights violations and abuse of prosecutorial authority raised during past investigations and indictments in cases including the Ssangbangwool cash transfer to North Korea and development corruption at Daejang-dong and the Wirye new town. Last month, 12 additional cases were added after public submissions and the team's own screening, including the Seongnam FC sponsorship case and suspected misuse of Gyeonggi Province corporate credit cards. Of the 19 cases under review in total, eight are directly or indirectly linked to President Lee.
The fact-finding team's mandate had been set to expire on the 22nd, but the committee extended it by 30 days. If a planned review is not completed, the team can report the reasons to the justice minister and extend its work in 30-day increments, effectively without limit. Legal experts expect the team's activities to run at least through year-end, given the 12 additional cases and the voluminous investigative and trial records in some of them.
The fact-finding team had focused on reviewing records since its launch in late June. But with Lee, widely seen as sympathetic to the ruling party, appointed as effectively the last head of the prosecution service, changes to the team's work are seen as unavoidable. Six of the cases under review — development corruption at Daejang-dong, Baekhyeon-dong and the Wirye new town, the Ssangbangwool cash transfer to North Korea, illegal sponsorship of Seongnam FC, and misuse of Gyeonggi Province corporate credit cards — have yet to reach a first-instance verdict, meaning prosecutors can still withdraw the charges.
President Lee said at a press conference on the 18th that while a special counsel law on what he called fabricated indictments under the Yoon Suk-yeol government was necessary, "the special counsel's authority to withdraw charges should be excluded from the bill." Some in legal circles read the appointment as installing Lee Jung-hyun to direct the withdrawal of charges using the committee's findings as a stepping stone, rather than through a special counsel.
Kong Bong-sook, a prosecutor at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office, wrote on social media on the 22nd that "if it is this person, it seems he could withdraw the charges voluntarily, without the minister issuing any instruction," adding that "he appears to have expressed such intent and capability several times, through prosecutor disciplinary matters and the parliamentary special investigation committee."
Such suspicions stem in part from what critics describe as a pronounced pro-government leaning in Lee's past conduct. At a National Assembly hearing in April on the Ssangbangwool cash transfer case, he said, "The prosecution has repeatedly promised the public that it would conduct restrained investigations that cut out only the diseased part, and we deeply regret and apologize that the promise was not thoroughly kept." At the time, some within the prosecution said it was inappropriate for Lee, who had not been involved in the investigation, to publicly criticize the investigative team.
He also filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn a one-month suspension imposed in April last year for failing to submit a research assignment while working at the Legal Research and Training Institute, calling it "retaliation by the Yoon Suk-yeol government." He lost the case last month. The court found that "the high prosecutor's conduct undermined public trust in the prosecution organization and damaged the dignity and standing of a prosecutor."
Lee is also leading preparations for the launch of the Public Prosecution Office on the 2nd of next month. As he serves as head of the prosecution just before that launch, he is expected to fill any leadership vacuum afterward or to be considered a leading candidate for the new agency's first prosecutor general. In an email sent to all prosecution staff on the 23rd, he wrote, "We are on no one's side but that of the people of the Republic of Korea, including crime victims and the socially vulnerable," adding, "If we firmly uphold principles and fundamentals, we can earn the public's trust and hold on to that trust."
