▲ Cho Kuk declared to resign the minister of justice

On October 14, the minister of justice, Cho Kuk, stepped out from his office. It was just 36 days after he started work. Also, it was 66 days after he was officially nominated. Before being nominated and before actually starting the work as a justice minister, there were many suspicions and some criticisms about him and his family. He and his wife and even his 28 years old daughter are all being criticized by citizens.

▲ Jeong Kyeong-sim, wife of Cho Kuk is also prosecuted for forgery of private documents

The president nominated Cho Kuk as the minister of justice even though more than half of citizens opposed it. Many people cast a question for the reason why the current president chose Cho Kuk as the right person for prosecutorial reform. As people have known, the current president has the will and very clear goal, and that is prosecutorial reform. However, why is it? Why should we reform the whole prosecution? The president argued that most of the corruption in this country is related to the prosecution. Then, he tried to make a person who can make the goal real as the justice minister. However, this "right" person and his family had bunches of corruption. His wife is now indicted for the crime of forgery of private documents. She is surrounded by suspicions for some kind of threatening for forgery. People who oppose against Cho Kuk claim that a person who has those corruptions cannot do the prosecutorial reform well.

After those controversies, Cho Kuk finally started to resign from the minister of justice. Some people might say that this investigation is like witch-hunt in medieval times. Nonetheless, more than half of the public did not agree to the nomination. Then, the president should follow the opinion of the citizens. After the statement of resigning, the support rate of the current president, Moon Jae-in, increased. This result shows the opinion of the public about Cho Kuk and the justice minister.

▲ The present prosecutor general says to accelerate the investigation

The present prosecutor general is accelerating on investigation about Cho Kuk and his wife, Jeong Kyeong-sim. Now, we cannot evaluate him or his investigation, but as it always was, corruption and illegal crimes should be punished, and justice should be fixed.

Nov. 10, 2019

by Kim Si-Hyoung