Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho walks up the steps to the Ministry of Justice in Gwacheon on Nov. 10, 2025, after taking questions from the press concerning prosecutors’ option to forgo an attraction on a decrease courtroom ruling on the Daejang improvement corruption scandal. (Kim Younger-won/Hankyoreh)
Amid rising controversy over a call to not attraction a courtroom’s ruling on a high-profile corruption case with connections to President Lee Jae Myung, members of South Korea’s prosecution service known as Monday for the resignation of performing Prosecutor Normal Noh Man-seok.
“We determined that an attraction wouldn’t be needed as a result of [some of the defendants] obtained a harder sentence than we’d requested,” stated Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho, explaining that the ministry had solely conveyed its opinion, and never given orders, to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Workplace (SPO). Nonetheless, the prosecution service’s uncommon determination to not attraction a ruling has aroused fierce protests from contained in the service.
A message titled “We request further clarification from performing Prosecutor Normal Noh Man-seok” cosigned by a gaggle of 18 senior prosecutors from across the nation, together with Park Jae-eok, director of the Suwon department workplace, was posted on the prosecution service’s inner message board on Monday.
The message amounted to a requirement for a public clarification: “We request an in depth clarification of the motivations and authorized grounds for the order to not attraction the ruling on the Daejang improvement case.”
Yesterday, Noh defined that the prosecution service had determined to not attraction the ruling after contemplating “the Justice Ministry’s place, the preliminary verdict’s reasoning and substance, the situations for an attraction, and the case’s development so far.” However these senior prosecutors apparently don’t take into account that an satisfactory clarification about why the service wouldn’t pursue an attraction in a case related with the president.
Prosecution analysis officers on the SPO primarily demanded that Noh step down. “The choice to not attraction this ruling amounted to the prosecutors’ abdicating their basic accountability of securing a conviction,” the researchers stated in a message delivered to Noh titled “Opinion of SPO Analysis Officers.”
“We ask that you simply take accountability within the acceptable method and make clear your intentions going ahead,” the SPO researchers added.
A number of mid-level managers and senior aides on the SPO met with Noh, with some asking him to resign.
Eight department workplace administrators, together with these for Anyang and Seongnam, launched an announcement calling on “people ready of accountability to problem an inexpensive clarification and undertake a posture befitting their place.”
Professors on the Judicial Analysis and Coaching Institute, the place new hires are educated, additionally requested Noh for a “detailed clarification.”
When Noh — who acknowledged Sunday that he was chargeable for the choice to not attraction the courtroom’s ruling — was requested by reporters on the best way to work on Monday whether or not he’d been performing on orders from the justice minister or vice minister, he stated he would “discuss that on one other event.”
Noh reportedly advised senior prosecutors on the SPO that he’d “ordered the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Workplace to rethink their determination to attraction after being contacted by the Ministry of Justice.”
“I conveyed to the SPO my opinion that they need to attain a prudent determination [about appealing the ruling] in consideration of a number of circumstances,” Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho advised reporters exterior the ministry in Gwacheon on Monday morning.
“In accordance with the general public demand for the prosecution service to be dismantled and stripped of its investigative authority, we face questions on the way to reform the prosecution and set up separate workplaces for dealing with indictments and investigating severe crimes. Underneath these circumstances, I deemed it wasn’t correct for prosecutors to be tied up in this type of political case,” the minister went on to say.
By Bae Ji-hyun, employees reporter; Kim Ga-yoon, employees reporter
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