[In-Depth Review] Jeong Yunhoe Document and the High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Agency

Heo Yoon, Senior Spokesperson of the Korean Bar Association

On November 28, 2014, the so-called "Jung Yoonhoe Document," titled "Rumors of the Chief Secretary of the Blue House being replaced and the movements of VIP aides (Jung Yoonhoe)," was made public. The Blue House denied all the contents of the document and defined the nature of the incident not as a confirmation of the state manipulation allegations but as a leak of national records and a disruption of national order. An Bong-geun and others also filed defamation charges against journalists with the prosecution. The prosecution assigned the defamation part to the criminal division and the document leak to the special division, conducting a two-track investigation. However, while confirming the authenticity of the document would reveal whether Jung Yoonhoe, An Bong-geun, Lee Jae-man, and others manipulated state affairs, the prosecution focused only on who obtained the document and who delivered it to the media. The author, acting as a lawyer for the journalists, visited the prosecution office several times for questioning, and the most frequent question asked was "Where did you obtain the document?" During this process, a police officer under investigation as the distributor of the document took his own life, and Park Kwan-cheon, an administrative officer who wrote the inspection report, and Cho Eung-cheon, a secretary, were indicted on charges including breach of official secrets. Nevertheless, the prosecution's results were exactly as expected. The journalists who reported at the time were cleared of charges in June 2017, two years and six months after the investigation began. In the case of Secretary Cho Eung-cheon, it was only in January 2021, seven years later, that he was acquitted of the document leak charges.

The Jung Yoonhoe state manipulation document case involves not only defamation and national record leaks. Amid fierce disputes over the document's authenticity, Secretary An Bong-geun was accused of interfering with police personnel dispatched to the Blue House, Secretaries Jung Ho-sung and Lee Jae-man were charged with breach of official secrets, and Jung Yoonhoe was accused of bribery under the Special Act. These were requests to investigate and punish the Blue House's powerful secretaries for crimes related to public officials. However, there has been no media coverage or official disclosure from the prosecution about how investigations into An Bong-geun, Jung Ho-sung, and Jung Yoonhoe proceeded. Journalists under investigation for the Jung Yoonhoe document case repeatedly pointed out this issue. They questioned why the main culprits of state manipulation were not properly investigated and even threatened to refuse further questioning if proper investigations were not conducted. However, the prosecution showed a passive attitude.

Two years later, in December 2016, the Choi Soon-sil (renamed Choi Seo-yeon) state manipulation scandal broke out. Naturally, Choi's state manipulation was already detailed in the 2014 Jung Yoonhoe state manipulation document. If the prosecution had properly investigated Jung Yoonhoe, An Bong-geun, Jung Ho-sung, and other Blue House secretaries in 2014, Choi's state manipulation would have been uncovered two years earlier, and the state manipulation scandal that swept through our society in 2016 and 2017 would not have existed. Furthermore, the extreme confrontation between conservatives and progressives might not have occurred. On the 28th of last month, the Constitutional Court ruled the law related to the High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Office (HOCI) constitutional. Thus, the HOCI, whose necessity had been raised for 26 years, was officially launched. The HOCI was established to investigate high-ranking officials' crimes and power-related corruption that the prosecution had not properly handled so far. Of course, like the existing prosecution, there is a possibility that it may lose its focus and be swayed depending on the administration. However, the HOCI knows better than anyone that if its neutrality and independence are questioned, it cannot continue to exist. No one would step onto a path that leads to death. I hope that, taking to heart the pouring concerns, it will cautiously and slowly walk the right path.

Heo Yoon, Senior Spokesperson of the Korean Bar Association

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.