Rhyu Si-min, a commentator aligned with the broad ruling bloc, said on the 22nd that the prosecution reform being pursued by President Lee Jae-myung's administration is "something entirely different from what we had in mind as prosecution reform, from the Democratic Party of Korea's position, and from what was described as the president's campaign pledge."
Speaking on the YouTube channel of Media Today that day, Rhyu said, "We used the same words — separation of investigation and indictment, prosecution reform — but the substance was different," and charged that "the president has been deceiving the public all along." He pointed to an earlier exchange: "I said I believed prosecution reform had stalled because President Lee did not want a complete separation of investigation and indictment. But the presidential office said the president's position on separating investigation and indictment had never once wavered, and that Rhyu Si-min was attacking him based on nothing but his own conjecture."
Turning to the president's recent news conference, Rhyu said, "President Lee said the maximum scope of prosecution reform was dividing prosecutors into those who investigate and those who indict, both within the Ministry of Justice," adding, "I was shocked watching him say that." He then argued, "That is wrong, it is not true. I had never once heard anything like it."
Rhyu went on to say that the core of prosecution reform had been missing from the public notices of proposed rules the government had released. "All of these proposed rules so far reflected the president's will," he said. "So while we used the same phrase, prosecution reform, the substance was different."
On the decline in Lee's approval ratings, Rhyu said the problem "was not created by a single remark but is the result of many people's actions over a long period," adding, "The stage where this could be settled with talk of unity at a news conference passed a long time ago."
On Lee's call for supporters of the ruling camp to refrain from using derogatory labels, Rhyu was pointed: "For a year, the people who insist only President Lee is right have been coining slurs and throwing stones. Until now it was a one-sided assault, and now he is treating it as a mutual brawl and telling both sides not to fight."
