Lee Won-seok criticizes 'fabricated indictment' special prosecutor push
'Park Geun-hye, Lee Myung-bak and Han Myeong-sook all stood trial'
'Existing crimes do not disappear or shrink'
'They may try to open a path to dropping charges, but no prosecutor will follow'
Former Prosecutor General Lee Won-seok said Friday that a special prosecutor bill being pushed by the ruling camp — dubbed the "fabricated indictment special prosecutor" bill — must be abandoned, arguing that judicial matters should be left to the judiciary.
Lee released a statement Friday morning, saying he could no longer stay silent as a former prosecutor general while the rule of law and constitutional order crumbled. "I speak with a heavy heart and earnestly ask that you listen carefully," he said.
Lee said the bill's very title enshrines the terms "fabricated investigation" and "fabricated indictment" as established facts. "It has branded prosecutors as having conducted fabricated investigations and fabricated indictments, based solely on the one-sided, retracted claims of those involved in the illegal Daejang-dong, Baekhyeon-dong and Wirye real estate development schemes — figures behind astronomical speculative profits — and defendants in the illegal inter-Korean funds transfer case," he said.
Lee also said a parliamentary investigation conducted in April had already shown that the allegations of fabricated investigations and fabricated indictments were groundless. "All of our citizens know full well what the purpose of this special prosecutor is," he said. "But the truth does not change just because a special prosecutor is appointed."
"Existing crimes do not disappear or shrink," he said. "They will try to open a path to dropping charges based on the special prosecutor's one-sided findings, but no prosecutor will follow. The charges will not be dropped. Instead, far greater judicial problems will snowball, and before long the truth will come to light."
Lee said the government and the Democratic Party treat the separation of investigation and indictment as an ironclad principle of criminal justice, noting that prosecutors had been stripped of even their supplementary investigative powers — powers directly relevant to people's everyday lives — leaving them with no investigative authority whatsoever.
Yet, he said, the proposed special prosecutor — established for the purpose of dropping charges — would be granted full authority to both investigate and indict. "The special prosecutor, whose targets are chosen by the Democratic Party and whose appointment is made by the president, is apparently exempt from the Democratic Party's own principle of separating investigation from indictment," he said.
Lee said the bill would even retroactively apply prosecutorial powers already abolished under the old Code of Criminal Procedure. "This creates a criminal justice system designed to benefit oneself and one's own side," he said. "How does one explain such a glaring self-contradiction? The Democratic Party's own cherished principle of separating investigation from indictment has vanished without a trace."
Lee argued that all citizens are equal before the law and that criminal justice procedures must apply equally to everyone. Requiring police to investigate and prosecutors to decide on indictment for ordinary citizens — while allowing a special prosecutor, who is fundamentally a prosecutor, to both investigate and indict the special prosecutor's own targets and have that evidence deemed admissible — violates the equal rights of those targeted, he said.
Lee added that reviving already-abolished prosecutorial investigative powers and applying them exclusively to specific individuals constitutes a violation of the Constitution. "Former President Park Geun-hye stood trial. Former President Lee Myung-bak stood trial. Former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook stood trial," he said.
yg@heraldcorp.com
