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Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl heads to work on Nov. 18. (Yonhap News)

Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae cited five main allegations of improprieties in her announcement on Nov. 24 that she was suspending current Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl from his duties, the first suspension of a sitting prosecutor general in the history of South Korea’s Constitutional government. While allegations such as meeting with media company owners and disrupting investigations of collusion between prosecutors and the media had been raised before, other allegations concerning court monitoring in a case involving former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk were revealed for the first time ever.

According to Choo’s explanation, the office of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office (SPO) investigative intelligence policy conducted an investigation in February of a judge in cases involving Cho and allegations of the Blue House ordering investigations, during which it scrutinized the content of her rulings in major political cases, whether she was a member of the Society for Research on Our Law. The investigation also scrutinized her family members, rumors about her, personal pastimes, and whether she was considered “potentially controversial.” The findings were subsequently reported to Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, Choo explained.

Both of the cases in question are being heard by the 21st criminal division of Seoul Central District Court under judge Kim Mi-ri. They involve defendants who are key figures in the ruling Democratic Party, including Cho, who was indicted on charges related to an investigation cover-up, and others indicted on charges that the Blue House ordered an investigation of other candidates in the Ulsan mayoral race ahead of the 2018 elections to ensure the victory of attorney Song Cheol-ho, a close friend of President Moon Jae-in.

According to a Ministry of Justice (MOJ) investigation, the office of the SPO investigative intelligence policy (formerly known as the office of the criminal intelligence planning) provided a document including personal information on the judge hearing the cases to Yoon, who the ministry said “violated the responsibilities of his duty by ordering its delivery to the anti-corruption and organized crime department, enabling the gathering and use of personal information about judges and their leanings that the office of the criminal intelligence planning officer is not allowed to collect.”

The “controversial judges” are named in an internal document compiled by the National Court Administration (NCA) while Yang Sung-tae was the chief justice of the Supreme Court, in which the leanings of judges critical of Yang’s court were analyzed and used as a basis for disadvantageous treatment in appointments. A current judge explained, “The ‘controversial judges’ list is a perfect illustration of how judges were suppressed under Yang Sung-tae’s judiciary, so it’s quite shocking that prosecutors investigating judicial misconduct would have investigated whether a judge responsible for a particular case was considered ‘controversial.’”

The first allegations of improprieties announced involving Yoon concerned inappropriate meetings with the owners of media companies. The claim is that while working as chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in November 2018, Yoon violated prosecutorial ethics by meeting at a bar in Seoul’s Jongno District with JTBC de facto owner Hong Seok-hyun — who was then party to a case — and engaging in “inappropriate interactions that may have compromised fairness.”

The meetings between Yoon and the owners of conservative news outlets were first reported in media columns over a year ago in September 2019. More concrete details surrounding alleged meetings were reported in July and August of this year before becoming part of the official record with questions from ruling party lawmakers during an October parliamentary audit of the SPO.

The allegations at the time were that Yoon met with Chosun Ilbo chairman Bang Sang-hoon and Hong — also a former Chosun Ilbo chairman — while serving as chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office. Yoon’s actions in avoiding giving a direct answer on whether he had done so also provided a basis for the MOJ inspector general’s office to conduct in-person interrogations.

In her decision on Nov. 24 to suspend Yoon from his duties, Choo took issue with the alleged meeting with Hong rather than the one with Bang. In May 2018, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office had arrested commentator Byun Hee-jae on charges of defaming JTBC executives with his claims that the network’s story involving Choi Soon-sil’s tablet PC were “false.” Byun’s first trial was underway at the time, and the MOJ concluded that Yoon acted inappropriately in meeting with Hong, a party to the case, ahead of the prosecutors’ sentencing request.

Other factors cited in Yoon’s suspension included disruption of investigations concerning senior prosecutor Han Dong-hoon, who has been implicated in allegations of collusion between prosecutors and the media, and prosecutors who investigated former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook. The MOJ alleges that after hearing an April 2020 report from SPO investigative chief Han Dong-su on the initiation of an investigation of a chief prosecutor, Yoon “instructed him to suspend the investigation without justifiable grounds,” which violated SPO rules of operation stating that “initiated investigations should not be suspended unless they are conspicuously unjust or fall outside jurisdiction.”

Choo further took issue with Yoon leaking to the press about his conflict with Han Dong-su surrounding the chief prosecutor investigation. Her determination was that Yoon violated the requirements of his duties by leaking that the SPO investigation headquarters chief had “unilaterally provided notification by text that he was investigating Han Dong-hoon, without any oral report.”

Additionally, Choo alleged that Yoon had abused his authority as prosecutor general in transferring to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office an order to scrutinize the process of former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook’s investigation. This was the case referred to by Choo when she claimed the “prosecutor general chopped off half of my order.”

Further grounds given for Yoon’s suspension included his refusal to cooperate with in-person interrogation for an investigation by the MOJ inspector general’s office. As a final basis for disciplinary action, Choo cited Yoon’s political activities, which she said had “damaged dignity and trust in relation to his political neutrality as prosecutor general.”

By Kim Tae-gyu, staff reporter

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