The presidential office on the 24th publicly expressed regret over writer Yoo Si-min's criticism that President Lee Jae-myung had "deceived the public" regarding his plans for prosecution reform. The office said Yoo's claims could lead the public to misunderstand the president's commitment to reform. It distanced itself, however, from reports that it was considering legal action against Yoo, saying nothing had been decided.
In a notice to the press that day, the presidential office said it "expresses regret at the distortion of the president's commitment to prosecution reform in a way that differs from the facts," adding that it was "verifying the facts as baseless accusations continue." On the possibility of legal action, it said, "Nothing has been decided on whether to pursue legal action."
The controversy arose after President Lee explained his original vision for prosecution reform at a press conference on the 18th. Lee said at the time that "prosecution reform is something I pledged, and the goal is to separate investigation from indictment," citing a plan to divide prosecutors handling investigations from those handling indictment and prosecution as "the originally intended maximum goal of prosecution reform."
He continued: "The idea was to separate these and split them into an agency in charge of investigations and an agency in charge of prosecution within the Ministry of Justice. In fact, things have progressed beyond that. Now prosecutors cannot investigate at all." His point was that the public prosecution office and serious crime investigation agency system currently being pursued goes further than the level of reform he had originally envisioned.
Yoo took issue with the phrase "originally intended maximum." Appearing on the YouTube channel of Media Today on the 22nd, he argued that "the prosecution reform the president had in mind was something completely different from the prosecution reform we had in mind, from the Democratic Party's position, and from what had been described as the president's campaign pledge."
He went on to charge that "the president has been deceiving the public all along." The core of Yoo's argument is that while the Democratic Party and its supporters had understood prosecution reform to mean eliminating prosecutors' direct investigative powers and organizationally separating investigative and indictment bodies, the original vision the president described differed from that.
Within the ruling party, rebuttals followed that Yoo had misread the intent of the president's remarks. Rep. Park Beom-kye of the Democratic Party of Korea said Yoo had interpreted the passage in which the president explained the maximum reform he had once envisioned as if it were the endpoint of the prosecution reform now under way.
Jeon Yong-gi, a member of the Democratic Party's supreme council, also pushed back at a supreme council meeting on the 23rd without naming Yoo directly, saying, "I express strong regret at the expression that the president deceived the public," and adding, "The principle of separating investigation from indictment has already been settled."
Rep. Yoon Kun-young of the Democratic Party, by contrast, said that while Yoo's wording may have been problematic, the remarks came from a desire for the Lee Jae-myung administration to succeed — reflecting differences in tone within the ruling camp.
This is not the first time the presidential office and Yoo have clashed over prosecution reform. In July, Yoo also argued that the president did not want a complete separation of investigation and indictment.
At the time, Kang Yu-jung, senior presidential spokesperson, countered that "on the core value of prosecution reform — the separation of investigation and indictment — President Lee Jae-myung and the presidential office have never once wavered."
With the same issue flaring up again after roughly two months, the presidential office this time went public with its response, going so far as to use the phrase "baseless accusations." By stopping short on legal action, however, it appeared for now to be placing its weight on verifying the facts and rebutting the claims publicly.
