Prosecutors Reassign Jo Guk and Im Jong-seok's 'Public Institution Blacklist Allegations' to Criminal Division 1... Lead Prosecutor Also Transferred

From the left, former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk and former Presidential Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok. Photo by Moon Ho-nam, Kim Hyun-min

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] The criminal division has been reassigned the case involving allegations of a 'public institution blacklist' during the Moon Jae-in administration, which implicates former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk and former Presidential Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok.

Recently, the prosecution revived the direct investigation function of the criminal division, which had been blocked by former Minister of Justice Chu Mi-ae, through an organizational restructuring. This move was made to redistribute and reassign cases concentrated in the Anti-Corruption Division to the criminal division. The prosecutor in charge of the case was also reassigned from the Anti-Corruption Division to the criminal division.

According to the legal community on the 10th, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office reassigned the public institution blacklist allegation case, which had been assigned to the Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 2 (Chief Prosecutor Kim Young-chul) on the 4th, to the Criminal Division 1 (Chief Prosecutor Park Hyuk-soo). Along with this, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office reassigned Prosecutor Kim Min-seok, who had been investigating the case in the Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 2, to the Criminal Division 1 through workload distribution. Additionally, Prosecutor Bang Jun-sung, who belonged to the Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 1, was moved to the Criminal Division 1 to strengthen its investigative capacity.

The 'public institution blacklist' allegation concerns suspicions that from 2017 to 2018, former Chief of Staff Im and former Minister Cho, along with about ten Moon Jae-in administration officials including former Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Kyung-wha, created a 'blacklist' containing hundreds of executives from the previous administration's public institutions and were involved in obtaining resignations or pressuring those individuals to resign.

The People Power Party's Legal Support Group filed a complaint against them in April on charges of abuse of authority, and the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office had assigned the case to the Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 2 to conduct the investigation.

This reassignment became possible after the prosecution office's organizational regulations were revised again to restore the direct investigation function to the criminal division.

Former Minister Chu Mi-ae had revised the regulations in 2020 to reduce the prosecution's direct investigation function, allowing only one criminal division at the end level to conduct recognition investigations with the approval of the Prosecutor General.

A prosecution official stated, "The transfer was made to evenly distribute abuse of authority complaints and accusations that had been concentrated under the 4th Chief Prosecutor due to the inability to conduct direct investigations," adding, "The reduction of about ten prosecutors under the 4th Chief Prosecutor due to personnel changes was also considered in the reassignment."

With the regulations revised again and the reinstatement of recognition and direct investigation functions in frontline prosecution offices' criminal divisions, it is expected that the prosecution's investigations into several major cases that had been stalled will accelerate.

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