Suwon High Prosecutors’ Office Chief Lee Jung-hyun Named Acting Prosecutor General... "Preparing for a Smooth Launch of the Public Prosecution Office"

[Financial News] Ahead of the Public Prosecution Office’s launch on October 2, Lee Jung-hyun, chief prosecutor of the Suwon High Prosecutors’ Office and a member of the 27th class of the Judicial Research and Training Institute, will serve as acting prosecutor general. The appointment is intended to fill the leadership vacuum at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office of the Republic of Korea (SPO) ahead of the transition to the Public Prosecution Office.
The Ministry of Justice said on the 22nd that it would carry out a personnel transfer involving one prosecutor at the SPO level, effective on the 23rd, appointing Lee as deputy prosecutor general at the SPO. As the prosecutor general’s post is vacant, Lee will serve as acting prosecutor general.
The Ministry of Justice explained the background to the appointment, saying, "It is intended to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of the SPO’s deputy prosecutor general and ensure preparations for the smooth launch of the Public Prosecution Office."
Earlier, after an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act containing provisions including the abolition of prosecutors’ supplementary investigative authority passed in July, Koo Ja-hyun, the former deputy prosecutor general at the SPO and acting prosecutor general, announced his intention to resign.
As a result, the prosecution service continued preparations for the transition to the Public Prosecution Office while its top post remained vacant. The Ministry of Justice is seen as having appointed Lee as acting prosecutor general with 10 days remaining before the Public Prosecution Office’s launch so that he could oversee the remaining preparations.
Lee, a member of the 27th class of the Judicial Research and Training Institute, joined the prosecution service in 1998 as a prosecutor at the Northern Branch of the Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office. He later served at the Gunsan Branch of the Jeonju District Prosecutors’ Office, the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office and the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office before becoming a prosecutor in the Criminal Legislation Division of the Ministry of Justice in 2007. He subsequently served as chief prosecutor at the Tongyeong Branch of the Changwon District Prosecutors’ Office, head of the Public Safety Department at the Daegu District Prosecutors’ Office and head of Inspection Division 2 at the SPO.
Under the Moon Jae-in administration, he served as chief of Criminal Division 1 at the Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office, deputy chief prosecutor at the Seoul Western District Prosecutors’ Office, first deputy chief prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office and head of the Public Investigations Department at the SPO.
After the Yoon Suk Yeol administration took office in May 2022, he was reassigned to a research fellow position at the Legal Research and Training Institute. Following the change in administration, he was promoted to chief prosecutor of the Suwon High Prosecutors’ Office last November.
In April, Lee appeared before the so-called "fabricated-indictment" parliamentary investigation and said that the investigative method used by the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office in its investigation into Ssangbangwool’s remittances to North Korea was "an extremely flawed investigative method."
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