With the "dropping the appeal in the Daejang-dong case" turmoil prompting successive resignations from the top ranks of the prosecution, many posts in the leadership have been left vacant. With the possibility that more senior prosecutors could step down, concerns are growing that gaps in investigation and prosecution functions could widen.
Earlier, on the 17th, Suwon District Prosecutors' Office Chief Park Jae-eok and Gwangju High Prosecutors' Office Chief Song Kang offered to resign. The two office chiefs added their names to a collective statement by chief prosecutors asking Acting Prosecutor General Noh Man-seok for a detailed explanation regarding the prosecution's decision to drop the appeal in the "Daejang-dong development corruption case." Park and Song are Judicial Research and Training Institute classmates (29th class) of former acting chief Noh, who retired over the matter.
If Song's resignation is accepted, the position of chief will be vacant at five of the nation's six high prosecutors' offices—Seoul, Suwon, Daejeon, Daegu, and Gwangju—leaving only the Busan High Prosecutors' Office with a chief.
On top of that, if the resignation of Park, the most senior among the district office chiefs, is accepted, the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office—which handles the largest number of transferred cases nationwide as of 2022—will also be left without a head. At the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, ranked second, Chief Prosecutor Jeong Jin-woo has already offered to resign over the dropped appeal in the Daejang-dong case.
Park was set to serve as the first head of the joint narcotics crime investigation headquarters, dubbed the "Korean DEA," but the launch of the joint unit was postponed after he offered to resign.
With 120 prosecutors already seconded to the special probes—the insurrection special counsel (60), the Kim Keon-hee special counsel (40), and the Marine Corps special counsel (20)—concerns are mounting that it will be difficult to maintain prosecutorial functions now that many in the leadership have also left.
The problem is that the departure of senior-level prosecutors could continue. Attention is now on the 30th–31st classes of the training institute, the core cohort of frontline district office chiefs, and on the 32nd–33rd classes, who had just begun to be promoted to chief prosecutor. Depending on how many "join in" among them, it will likely determine whether the wave of resignations subsides or expands.
Among the 30th class, those who had kept a step back during this dropped-appeal turmoil include Busan High Prosecutors' Office Chief Lee Jong-hyeok, Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office Chief Lim Eun-jeong, and Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office Chief Kim Tae-hoon.
Inside and outside the legal community, there is also focus on the timing of the resignations by Park and Song. They offered to resign just one day after it became known on the 16th that the Justice Ministry was considering reassigning all chief prosecutors who opposed dropping the appeal to line prosecutor posts. After the government and the ruling party said they were reviewing disciplinary action or "demotion to line prosecutor" for those who signed the statement, the move is being interpreted as a form of pushback.
The Democratic Party of Korea labeled the resistance within the prosecution to dropping the appeal in the Daejang-dong development scandal as a "collective insubordination" and called on the Minister Jeong to discipline them, and it is known that the Justice Ministry is also considering reassigning all 18 chief prosecutors who put their names on the statement to line prosecutor posts. Accordingly, from today over the next several days is expected to be the critical stretch in this "mass resignations" political phase.