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‘Improper Solicitation’ Justice Nominee Apologizes to Chair in ‘Trial Solicitation’ Scandal?
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I do not know which of the two applies to the smartphone screen of Kim Seung-won, the nominee for Minister of Justice, that was captured at the recent opening ceremony of the National Assembly. There was the spectacle of a seasoned ministerial nominee virtually prostrating himself before Seo Young-kyo, chair of the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee, sending her an apologetic text saying, “I’m sorry.”
But when you place the histories of these two people exchanging this obsequious communication side by side, it goes beyond a hollow laugh and almost calls for a standing ovation.
The reason Kim Seung-won had to explain himself to Chair Seo Young-kyo was the allegation that he had improperly solicited the head of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in the past to approve a new COVID-19 treatment.
Then who is Seo Young-kyo, the chair who received the message?
Is she not the central figure in that legendary scandal who once asked a judge for leniency in the trial of an acquaintance’s son, triggering an uproar across the country and ultimately forcing her to resign as the party’s senior deputy floor leader?
Looking at this astonishing two-shot, one cannot help but ask: Was Kim Seung-won’s plaintive “I’m sorry” message an act of bowing before the power of the judiciary committee chair of the giant ruling party? Or was it a respectful salute to a senior veteran of the solicitation business—a phoenix-like predecessor who managed to return to power even after suffering the humiliation of being driven from her post as senior deputy floor leader?
A man investigated for improper solicitation bares his belly and apologizes to someone who nearly lost her parliamentary badge over allegations of solicitation concerning a trial. What a magnificent collaboration between senior and junior figures in the world of solicitation. It is truly a perfect moral match befitting the chair of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee and the nominee for Minister of Justice, two people positioned to wield enormous influence over law and justice in the Republic of Korea.
The essence of Kim’s pathetic text message is that he feels wronged because, he says, “there was no evidence and no quid pro quo, yet prosecutors left only me with a deferred-prosecution disposition.”
Does he take citizens who know even a little about the law for fools?
A deferred prosecution is not an acquittal declaring an innocent person wrongly accused. It is a humiliating disposition in which prosecutors recognize that a criminal offense occurred but, taking into account factors such as the suspect’s age and surrounding circumstances, decide to give the suspect a break and refrain from bringing the case to trial.
A person carrying the unmistakable label of a crime involving improper solicitation, who narrowly avoided becoming a convicted criminal only because of the state’s leniency—how can such a person have the audacity to covet the ministerial seat responsible for safeguarding the rule of law?
Some warn that this absurd personnel disaster is actually a meticulously planned “feint to the east while attacking in the west” strategy engineered by the Lee Jae-myung administration. According to this theory, the administration nominated the woman derisively nicknamed “Cheonryong Ye-in” as Minister of Gender Equality in order to draw the entire nation’s anger and crossfire toward the east, while quietly installing in the west, at the Ministry of Justice, a blindly loyal action man who once headed a “prosecution withdrawal group” that seeks to forcibly shut down Lee Jae-myung’s trials.
But I say this with certainty: their shallow feint will never proceed as quietly and smoothly as they have calculated.
Of course, if the Democratic Party, armed with its overwhelming political muscle, is determined to force the appointment through, there is realistically no easy way to stop it.
But if they believe that, just because “Cheonryong Hye-in” is spectacularly going up in flames in the public square, Kim Seung-won—covered in the fatal stain of a deferred-prosecution disposition—can also quietly slip past public scrutiny and enter the office of Minister of Justice without resistance, they are grossly underestimating the intelligence of the Korean people.
No one is foolish enough to fail to see the dark intention behind putting a person implicated in an improper-solicitation offense at the helm of the justice system and then having that minister attempt the unprecedented maneuver of withdrawing prosecutions in order to bury the crimes of those in power.
So there is not even any need to struggle desperately to stop them.
Rather, let them have their way. Let them force this disastrous appointment through to the bitter end.
The moment the senior and junior figures of solicitation take control of the judicial system, and the grotesque two-top team of a “Minister Cheonryong Ye-in” and a “Deferred-Prosecution Minister” steps forward as the regime’s political bodyguards, the administration’s approval rating will plunge vertically and finally fall into an abyss from which there will be no recovery.
Go ahead, then. Take it all the way to the end.
An enraged public will ultimately prove that beneath the bottom lies an even deeper abyss.
#KimSeungWon #DeferredProsecution #JusticeMinisterNominee
* This article has been translated by ChatGPT.