Park Beom-gye, to Announce This Afternoon Whether He Accepts the Supreme Prosecutors' Office Chiefs' Meeting Result on 'Han Myeong-sook False Testimony' Case

Minister of Justice Park Beom-gye./Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] Park Beom-gye, Minister of Justice, announced on the afternoon of the 22nd that he would release a statement regarding the results of the Prosecutor General's Office chiefs meeting held last week following his investigative directive related to former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook.

In response to criticisms that his exercise of investigative directive authority was excessive, Minister Park rebutted, saying, "It was a procedure that had to be gone through at least once before making a final decision."

On the morning of the same day, while heading to work at the Ministry of Justice Gwacheon Government Complex, Minister Park told reporters, when asked whether he would accept the Prosecutor General's Office's final decision to not prosecute after the expanded meeting of chiefs and high prosecutors, "I will announce my position in the afternoon."

When asked about the criticism that the investigative directive was excessive, he replied, "It was a procedure that had to be gone through at least once before making a final decision," adding, "I hope people consider 'what if such a directive had not been issued' at least once."

Following Minister Park's investigative directive, the Prosecutor General's Office chiefs meeting held on the 19th concluded discussions, and among the 14 attendees including high prosecutors and chiefs, 10 voted for non-prosecution, 2 for prosecution, and 2 abstained, resulting in an overwhelmingly majority decision for non-prosecution.

Acting Prosecutor General Cho Nam-gwan reported the meeting results on the 20th to the Ministry of Justice, confirming the decision to maintain the March 5th prosecutorial disposition of no charges.

Minister Park reportedly came to the Gwacheon Government Complex on the holiday of the 21st to discuss with Ministry of Justice executives what stance to take regarding the Prosecutor General's Office chiefs meeting results.

Within legal circles, it is widely expected that Minister Park will accept the results of the Prosecutor General's Office chiefs meeting.

Previously, during a briefing on the investigative directive, Lee Jeong-su, Director of the Ministry of Justice's Prosecutor Department, expressed willingness to accept a non-prosecution decision by the Prosecutor General's Office chiefs meeting, and given the overwhelming majority vote for non-prosecution, it is anticipated that issuing a directive to prosecute would be difficult.

However, there is speculation that efforts will be made to counter any backlash from the failure of the investigative directive through joint inspections by the Prosecutor General's Office Inspection Department, led by Han Dong-su, who strongly advocated for prosecution, and the Ministry of Justice Inspection Office, including Im Eun-jeong, Inspection Policy Research Officer.

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