The announcement appears to have lent momentum to the Democratic Party’s push to strip prosecutors of their authority to conduct investigations.
The Democratic Party issued a blistering criticism of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s announcement Wednesday that he was nominating Han Dong-hoon, a close associate of his during his time as a prosecutor, to serve as minister of justice.
The party lambasted the selection as an example of “appointment terrorism” meant to “install a loyal servant rather than achieving fairness.”
Following its decision Tuesday to make the separation of the prosecutors’ investigative powers part of its party platform, the party appears likely to use Han’s selection as an impetus for speeding up its efforts to pass related legislation.
In a public meeting of confirmation hearing officials at the National Assembly that day, Democratic Party floor leader Park Hong-keun said, “This isn’t just an appointment catastrophe — this is an act of ‘appointment terrorism’ against the public.”
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* https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1038973.html
The article goes on to refer to Han's recent "unreasonable acquittal" on charges of "blackmail." Actually Han was charged with conspiracy to frame a political opponent of Yoon, Yoon's wife, and Han. It wasn't an "acquittal" but an ordinary declination to prosecute, which does not preclude charges against Han in the future. The reference to appointment terrorism and "privatizing" the prosecutorial function is an indirect way of saying Yoon will be a dictator, if the appointment goes through, and the democratic party's attempted reform of prosecutorial powers and organization fails. The democratic party was attempting to expedite the reforms by using a 180 vote super majority to overcome the expected filibuster by the conservative PPP party. For unexplained reasons the small Justice Party is refusing to cooperate with the democratic party, which has an estimated vote count of 179 votes at this point. Even if the reform bill were expedited, the appointment and confirmation of Han as Justice Minister would probably serve to neutralize the impact of the bill.
Yoon's wife has admitted communicating privately with Han on a regular basis. Yoon himself was disciplined a year ago by Ministry of Justice professional disciplinary board for unlawfully investigating judges, and intervening in the Channel A News case, (in which Han was alleged to be involved), and politicizing prosecution offices. Yoon's wife and mother in law, have been under investigation for various alleged unlawful acts. His mother in law, was convicted and then acquitted upon review of what we would call medicare fraud. His wife, Kim Gon-hee, is under investigation for insider stock trading where all participants but herself have gone to jail. A small group of demonstrators were thrown out of the Prosecutor General's Office annex yesterday for demanding prosecution of Yoon's wife. She is also alleged to have plagiarized her PhD thesis and falsified her academic resume.
At least two of Yoon's other nominations, those for Minister of Health and Welfare, and Prime Minister, are also alleged to raise ethical issues. The appointment of multiple ethically challenged appointments as alleged by critics, is seen as an effort to steam roll the appointment hearing process. In other words, there won't be enough hearing time to address these issues adequately.
The concentration of investigation and enforcement power in the South Korean centralized prosecutors' offices compares unfavorably to that of other governments such as the US, UK, Germany, France and Japan. By combining the power of President Yoon, Minister of Justice Han, and the Prosecutor General's Office, South Korea will become a defacto authoritarian state. This is something that people are afraid to say. No one wants to admit that Yoon is a potential despot, and that South Korean democracy is in jeopardy.
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