Lee Nak-yon: “Special counsel for fabricated prosecution will be the darkest chapter in South Korea’s rule-of-law history”

[Financial News] Former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon criticized the Special Counsel Act on Fabricated Prosecution on the 9th, saying it “will become the darkest chapter in the history of the rule of law in the Republic of Korea.”
He said in a social media (SNS) post that day: “The powers-that-be’s determination to erase the president’s criminal allegations has pushed South Korea even deeper into a dreadful quagmire.”
“On November 6, President Lee Jae Myung nominated Lee Yong-cheol, a Seongnam-linked head of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), to be justice minister—a post that had been vacant for two and a half months,” the former prime minister said. “The Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) gave final approval to the Special Counsel Act on Fabricated Prosecution in the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. They laid the groundwork that way for withdrawing the indictment in the president’s case.”
He continued: “The special counsel team set up under the act will reinvestigate the president’s cases that are already before the courts, among others. The team’s mission is to insert fabrication into the investigation or prosecution of those cases.” He added, “Next comes the withdrawal of the indictment.”
He called the DPK’s deletion of the special counsel’s authority to withdraw indictments a “sleight of hand.” He said: “A supplementary provision stipulates that the investigative and command powers of the special counsel and prosecutors assigned to the team are governed by the Criminal Procedure Act as it stood before its amendment. The former Criminal Procedure Act, repealed on October 1, recognized prosecutors’ powers to investigate and prosecute, as well as to withdraw indictments.” He claimed, “Even if the special counsel does not withdraw an indictment directly, if the team merely calls it ‘fabricated,’ the Public Prosecution Office will withdraw it through the justice minister.”
“South Korea has become a laughingstock around the world. The principle that ‘no one may be a judge in their own case’ has been a rule since Roman law,” Lee wrote. “But in South Korea, the president appoints the special counsel who will reinvestigate the president’s cases.”
He added: “The president has said that his own cases were fabricated. But neither the Ministry of Justice nor the prosecution has found any ‘fabrication’ so far. I’m afraid the special counsel team may even resort to fabrication in an attempt to find it.”

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