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Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl heads to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul. (Yonhap News)

The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) prosecutor disciplinary committee deemed the grounds for disciplinary action against Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl to be “serious enough on the whole to qualify for termination,” it has been discovered.

While the committee judged Yoon to have engaged in serious improprieties including drafting a document “analyzing the political leanings” of judges, it ultimately decided to suspend him for two months in consideration of the “special factors” of disciplinary action against a prosecutor general.

According to a summary of the review and voting for Yoon’s disciplinary action that was made public on Dec. 17, the disciplinary committee concluded that his order to draft a document analyzing judges’ political leanings was “unacceptable” for a prosecutor general. The committee determined that Yoon drafted and distributed such a document to steer public opinion against judges “whose rulings are contrary to the prosecutors’ wishes,” adding that such surveillance amounted to “abuse in the form of propagating an unfavorable image to attack or slander [judges] and turn them into figures of mockery.”

The document reportedly identified a judge in a case involving judicial misconduct as “controversial” because he had failed to show up to an interrogation hearing after waking up late from drinking the evening before.

“Such detailed information was not reported on in the press [at the time], and identical content was actually in the ‘list of controversial judges,’” the committee noted. This means that the committee asked for confirmation from the court handling the judicial misconduct case (Seoul Central District Court, 35th criminal division) and was told that the same content had in fact been included in the trial records.

On this basis, the committee said there were “substantial grounds for concluding that the corresponding information from the ‘controversial judge list’ obtained by the judicial misconduct investigators was provided directly to the office of the investigative intelligence policy.” Its conclusion was that information acquired during an investigation had been leaked.

When Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae alluded to this surveillance of judges when ordering Yoon’s suspension, Yoon’s side countered that prosecutors had “merely written down what had been shared in court.” In a message posted on the prosecutors’ intranet, Dan Seong-han, the prosecutor leading the judicial misconduct case, wrote that “the prosecutors responsible for sustainment of prosecutor duties never provided [the document] to the SPO investigative policy office or any other department.”

The disciplinary committee also concluded that Yoon’s remarks about going into politics after stepping down were “damaging to his authority as prosecutor general.” When asked in a parliamentary audit of the SPO on Dec. 10 whether he had plans to pursue a career in politics, Yoon replied, “I have received many benefits from society, and I will think long and hard about how I can serve the public after leaving office.”

Noting that “many National Assembly members interpreted Prosecutor General Yoon’s remarks as an indication of intent to engage in political activity after leaving office,” the committee determined that this “means that the potential for political exploitation of ongoing investigations into major cases cannot be ruled out, and may threaten the fairness and political neutrality of investigations.”

The committee further concluded that Yoon had intervened inappropriately in the Channel A investigation, in which senior prosecutor Han Dong-hoon was implicated. “Despite having a clear obligation to recuse himself from a case involving a close associate, he insisted on convening a meeting of expert investigative advisors,” the committee noted, concluding that he had “used his authority as prosecutor general to intervene in an investigation.”

Alluding to an episode in 2013 when Yoon was pressured by Cho Young-gon, then head of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, to not investigate presidential election interference by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the committee said, “What transpired would never have happened with Prosecutor General Yoon when he was investigating the NIS internet posts.”

Yoon’s meeting with JTBC owner Hong Seok-hyun was not addressed because of its “unclear relation to any criminal case,” while allegations of leaking information on an investigation into Channel A were dropped due to lack of evidence. The committee also dismissed allegations of obstructing an inspection of incitement to malicious perjury by a team investigating former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook, concluding that the transfer from the SPO to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office could not be seen as violating the law in and of itself.

“While the guarantees on the prosecutor general’s term are meant to ensure fairness and political neutrality, the improprieties in this case damage public trust in political neutrality, and there was deep consideration as to whether it would be appropriate to guarantee Prosecutor General Yoon’s term,” the committee said.

“While the individual improprieties are serious enough on the whole to qualify not only for suspension but for termination, many special factors were considered in terms of this being an unprecedented case of disciplinary action against a prosecutor general,” it added.

In response, attorney Lee Wan-gyu, representing Yoon, said, “The content of the decision is merely speculative. We are taking legal action to object to the decision.” Among prosecutors, many criticized the ruling as solely reflecting the accounts of prosecutors allied with Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae.

In a message posted to the prosecutors’ intranet that day, Park Young-jin, a chief prosecutor with the Ulsan District Prosecutors’ Office who directed the SPO’s first criminal division at the time of the Channel A investigation, wrote, “The prosecutor general was not involved in the process of preparing a list of candidates for the expert advisory group. I testified as such to the disciplinary committee, but this was not reflected at all.”

Lee Bok-hyeon, a chief prosecutor with the Daejeon District Prosecutors’ Office, who investigated the NIS political interference case alongside Yoon, also shared strong objections.

“Some of the investigation team members were disciplined, while others tendered their resignations. How can [the disciplinary committee] compare the current situation to the superior who blocked the investigation into the NIS posts?” Lee asked, calling for the statements made to the disciplinary committee by prosecutors Sim Jae-cheol, Lee Jeong-hyeon, and Kim Gwan-jeong to be made public.

By Bae Ji-hyun, staff reporter

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