Education nominee apologizes over daughter's study abroad, plagiarism claims
President Lee Jae Myung's pick for justice minister, Democratic Party of Korea Rep. Jung Sung-ho, said Wednesday that taking away the public prosecution service's authority to investigate is inevitable.
Speaking at a National Assembly hearing on his nomination, Jung said, "Reforming the prosecution service is the call of the times."
"To ensure the prosecution service remains politically neutral, and to keep its excessive powers in check, reforming the prosecution is the path that cannot be changed," Jung said.
Jung's remarks on Wednesday echo Lee's calls for turning the prosecution service into a noninvestigative institution in a major overhaul of the country's criminal justice system.
On July 3, during his first press conference since his inauguration some four weeks prior, Lee said that prosecutors "had it coming" with the reform plan. "Manipulating cases to build an indictment is something that should never happen," the president said.
Since before he was a presidential candidate, Lee had pushed to slash the prosecution's investigative powers, claiming that criminal investigations into allegations surrounding him and his close aides were politically motivated.
Bills submitted by the Democratic Party shortly after Lee took office would make it so the prosecution service as it is now would be abolished and replaced by new bodies.
In a similar fashion, Democratic Party's former President Moon Jae-in, who had also made reform of the prosecution service part of his administration's main agenda, removed prosecutors' ability to investigate corruption and other crimes involving powerful people, setting up a new body called the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials instead.
Four years after its establishment in 2021, the CIO has not been able to produce meaningful achievements, with the Democratic Party calling to upgrade the institution by allotting greater budget and manpower.
In the country's recent history, the prosecution service led some of the highest-profile investigations into the political and corporate elite, including former conservative Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye and Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong.
Critics say reducing the prosecution's role could lead to more oversight in the criminal justice system, as police would be able to terminate investigations without prosecutors' input.
Jung said at Wednesday's hearing that he was open to letting prosecutors keep their authority to oversee police investigations to minimize possible fallout from the reform.
Jung also said he would not exercise influence over ongoing criminal cases into the president.
Also on Wednesday, the Assembly hearing for Lee Jin-sook, the nominee for education minister and deputy prime minister, unfolded amid allegations of misconduct from her time as a professor and president of Chungnam National University.
The education minister nominee denied having plagiarized her graduate students' theses and papers after an analysis by the People Power Party showed that parts of papers she authored matched those of her students.
She also apologized for allegations of sending her daughter abroad for school illegally.
Her second daughter, now 33, left for the US in 2007 during her third year of middle school — a violation of the law that requires students to complete compulsory education in Korea.
At her confirmation hearing, Lee said she was “truly sorry,” but that she did not know the move broke the law at the time.
The trip would have been legal if either parent had gone with her, but both Lee and her husband stayed in Korea. The offense carries a fine of under 1 million won ($730).
Lee did not respond to a People Power Party lawmaker's question asking if she would be willing to give up her nomination.
arin@heraldcorp.com
