'Comprehensive Failures' Overshadowed by Investigation Command Issue... Ministry of Justice Also Faces Inevitable Overhaul After Receiving Lowest Evaluation

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] As the country enters a period of political transition, the current state of the Ministry of Justice is quite bleak. In particular, it has not received favorable scores in objective evaluations. The most painful result was receiving the lowest C grade in last year's government performance evaluation. The Ministry of Justice had the same grade for the previous three years as well. It did not give itself a good evaluation either. According to the Ministry of Justice's '2021 Self-Evaluation Report,' out of 59 tasks established last year, 39 were assessed as average, insufficient, or poor.

These results have significantly diminished the Ministry of Justice's trust and status. On the 20th, voices within the legal community naturally emerged, stating that the Ministry of Justice needs structural reform following the inauguration of the new government. Surgery seems inevitable. While all attention is currently focused on whether the Minister of Justice's authority to direct investigations will be abolished, the Ministry has revealed many problems in other policy areas and measures as well. For example, incidents where sex offenders repeatedly cut off their electronic anklets and fled exposed flaws in the electronic monitoring system, and nationwide correctional facilities experienced COVID-19 cluster infections, leading to a situation where the scale of recent parole releases had to be increased.

The Ministry of Justice's struggles so far appear to have been greatly influenced by the ministers leading it. With politicians from the ruling party consecutively serving as ministers?Cho Kuk (2019.09.09~2019.10.14), Choo Mi-ae (2020.01.02~2021.1.27), and Park Beom-gye (2021.01.28~)?the general assessment in the legal community is that the Ministry was politically exploited and became a biased institution.

There is also analysis that each minister tended to focus on specific areas due to their own circumstances. Former Minister Cho prioritized 'prosecutorial reform' as his main task and devoted all his efforts to policies related to the prosecution. During his tenure, he was also under investigation by the prosecution. Former Minister Choo showed particular interest in women and youth-related issues, prevention, eradication, investigation, and prognosis of sex crimes more than other areas. Minister Park, possibly because he is a member of the National Assembly representing Daejeon, where many startup companies are concentrated, was active in legal support for startups. Consequently, there are many criticisms that the Ministry of Justice failed to properly respond to unexpected problems in other areas that it must oversee.

The sharp conflicts with the prosecution triggered by the exercise of the investigative directive authority cannot be ignored in terms of the Ministry's fatigue. Over the five years of the Moon Jae-in administration, the Ministry of Justice repeatedly clashed with the prosecution over investigations and personnel matters, driven by the determination to complete prosecutorial reform. During this period, the Minister of Justice used the investigative directive authority as a card to pressure the prosecution. Former Minister Choo exercised it twice, and Minister Park once. Each time it was exercised, all attention focused on the cases the minister sought to direct, while interest in the Ministry's other tasks significantly declined.

Will it be different under the new government? Given President-elect Yoon's pledge to abolish the Minister of Justice's investigative directive authority and grant the Prosecutor General independent budgetary authority, conflicts between the Ministry of Justice and the prosecution are expected to be less intense than under the previous administration. This could create an environment where the Ministry can pay more attention to tasks outside of prosecution. However, who the new head will be is crucial. In political circles, prosecutors-turned-lawmakers such as Kwon Seong-dong of the People Power Party are being considered, while lawyers like Seok Dong-hyun of the Dongjin law firm, a classmate from Seoul National University Law School, are also mentioned as candidates.

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