hankyoreh

Prosecutor-General Yoon Seok-yeol heads to the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office in Seoul on Aug. 28

South Korea’s public prosecutors indicted Chung Kyung-shim, the wife of Justice Minister nominee Cho Kuk, shortly after Cho’s hearing wrapped up on Sept. 6, prompting allegations that the prosecutors are meddling in politics. Admittedly, not only the ruling and opposition parties, but the public as a whole, are sharply divided about Cho’s nomination. But the prosecutors clearly crossed the line when they took action that could affect the public’s judgment in the middle of Cho’s hearing. That reminds us once more of the urgency and importance of prosecutorial reform.

The prosecutors have justified their indictment of Chung by saying that the statute of limitations was about to expire. Even so, it’s extremely unusual for the prosecutors to indict a suspect without calling her in for questioning even once in the three days after they carried out their raids. Considering that the prosecutors apparently would’ve had more time to file charges for document forgery if they’d pegged the charges to the date when the couple’s daughter submitted her application to the Pusan National University School of Medicine in 2014, this smacks of a rushed indictment.

Claims that the prosecutors leaked information about the suspect continue to smolder. While the ruling party and the prosecutors butted heads on that issue last week, a few days ago more information was reported in the press that few people could have accessed other than the prosecutors who searched Chung’s computer. That leaves the suspect with little room to defend herself.

In light of the current lineup of the team of investigators, as well as the speed and vigor of their investigation, it’s no exaggeration to say that the prosecutors are treating this investigation as a matter of life and death. The prosecutors mentioned the “need to determine the facts” while kicking off their investigation with a flurry of raids just when Cho’s hearing was scheduled at the National Assembly, opening them up to criticism about political designs. That’s why concerns are being raised that the prosecutors mean to insert themselves into the nomination of people for public positions, usurping the vetting role of the press and the National Assembly. As the weeks go by, it’s becoming clearer that the prosecutors mean to dominate the nomination of justice minister, the post in the government to which they report.

The prosecutors might insist that their investigation is being carried out according to political neutrality and independence. They might further bring up the instructions that South Korean President Moon Jae-in gave to Yoon Seok-yeol upon his appointment as prosecutor-general: namely, to be strict even with the powers that be.

But considering that the prosecutors have thrown their elite special investigation division into a case that wasn’t launched on their own initiative and that doesn’t have anything to do with government corruption, that they’ve launched an attention-grabbing series of raids, and that unrelated allegations continue to surface in the press, it’s only natural that critics would allege that the prosecutors have ulterior motivations.

On top of that, we must recall that Cho is a nominee for Justice Minister who has long said that his number-one objective is shaking up the prosecutors. It’s not a stretch to suspect that the prosecutors were overtly pressuring Cho by hurriedly indicting his wife while his hearing was underway.

To be sure, it’s important for the prosecutors to remain neutral. But that presumes that prosecutors will not only exercise their power with impartiality, but also remain under the democratic control of the public, and that they will not become obsessed with protecting their own institutional interests. For decades now, the prosecutors have continued to maintain, and even expand, their authority and influence, regardless of which party was in power, while keeping a firm grip on the authority both to investigate cases and to make indictments.

That’s the context of a critical message that Lee Tan-hui, the former judge who helped break the news about manipulation of the courts under the presidency of Park Geun-hye, wrote on his Facebook page on Sept. 7: “There is a symbiotic relationship between the parochialism of the prosecutors and the parochialism of the courts. When public servants don’t care about the public interests that transcend them, the only thing left is their own institutional logic.”

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]