[스트레이트 예고] Tad Chance, Prosecutor’s Chance… The Myth of the ‘Prosecuting Kingdom’

In 2017, school violence occurred at a private school in Gangwon-do. The student led the bully with abusive language such as ‘Red’ and ‘pig’. The bullying continued for a year, and the victim even attempted suicide. Finally, the school opened a school riot committee and introduced a ‘forced transfer’ measure to the offender. Schools also recognized the seriousness of bullying. The so-called ‘prestige’ private school violence case seemed to have ended this way.

But that wasn’t the end, it was another beginning. The perpetrators opposed the school transfer actions and convened various legal procedures such as retrial, administrative lawsuit, and administrative opinion. For a year after reporting the abuse, the perpetrator and the victim stayed in the same space. Afterwards, the perpetrator passed Seoul National University, and the victim failed to enter college twice due to trauma. The verdict includes the content that “the child tried to apologize, but the father stopped him.” The criminal’s father is a current prosecutor at the then Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office and lawyer Jeong Soon-shin, who was recently appointed head of the police’s National Investigation Headquarters. When the controversy arose about his son’s abuse, Attorney Jeong expressed his appreciation. President Yoon Seok-yeol immediately canceled the personnel order.

In the process of reversing the appointment in one day due to media reports, the personnel verification system introduced by the Yoon Seok-yeol administration was put on the cutting board. In particular, doubts are growing whether the Ministry of Justice’s ‘Personnel Information Management Team’, which is said to have introduced the US’s senior personnel vetting system, worked properly. When this case began, Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon drew a line on real responsibility, saying, “The Ministry of Justice is a place that carries out a basic and mechanical check.” The police also do not fully recognize the responsibility of verifying personnel. At a time when the Ministry of Justice and the personnel verification system are filled with ex-prosecutors, suspicions are being raised that verification has been neglected in order to appoint ex-prosecutors to the head of the National Investigation Headquarters, which oversees police investigations across the country. The substance of the so-called ‘Dad Chance’ controversy in the case of school violence which gave the victim a lifetime of pain and the problems of the current government’s personnel verification system dug up