Roh Moo-hyun (left) bowing his head, saying, "I am ashamed before the people. I am sorry for disappointing you." (April 2009). The first party to directly file a complaint with the Supreme Prosecutors' Office regarding Lee Jae-myung’s 'alleged payment of legal fees' was not an opposition conservative party, but a pro-Moon Jae-in civic group. [Photo=Yonhap News]

During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, a famous catchphrase circulated throughout society: "It’s all because of Roh Moo-hyun." This sentence, once used as a form of political mockery and satire, may well resurface in the heart of Yeouido in the not-too-distant future as the most bizarre and dismal apocalypse mantra.

Whenever the giant ruling Democratic Party sets out to dismantle the nation's judicial system, they invariably summon Roh Moo-hyun from his grave. Ignoring the fact that the left—including the Hankyoreh—had pushed Roh to the edge themselves, they push a perfect martyr narrative, claiming that an innocent, saintly figure was driven to a tragic end by the prosecution's unreasonable investigation.

However, let us strip away the emotion and look at the bare, dry facts. They depict Roh as an untarnished scapegoat, but the fact that his family received large sums of money at the time is an undeniable, substantive truth.

Roh himself bowed his head in an address to the nation, calling his situation "shameful and pathetic." He was simply a wounded politician who admitted his own moral shortcomings.

What is more astonishing and despicable is the toxic, deceptive tactic of quietly inserting Lee Jae-myung into this fabricated martyr narrative to transform him into a "second Roh Moo-hyun."

Is the judicial risk Lee Jae-myung is currently facing really an unjust suppression maliciously fabricated by the political prosecutors of the impeached Yoon Suk-yeol administration, as they claim? Put aside your emotions and look at the records.

The first party to directly file a complaint with the Supreme Prosecutors' Office regarding Lee Jae-myung’s 'alleged payment of legal fees' was not a conservative opposition party, but a pro-Moon civic group.

It was his own fellow party members, who competed against him in the last Democratic Party presidential primary, who defined the Daejang-dong and Baekhyeon-dong scandal allegations as "the greatest corruption since the founding of the nation," and who fueled the fire by strongly urging the prosecution and police to conduct swift, compulsory investigations.

The vast majority of the core criminal allegations were filed and investigated during the Moon Jae-in administration, as a result of their own internal power struggles.

Recently, in a desperate attempt to manufacture an excuse for "forced prosecution" by the prosecution, they even concocted a bizarre, third-rate fiction about a "prosecutors' office salmon and drinking party" to stage a public spectacle, but what was the result?

That crude lie was shattered not only by the judgment of strict legal principles but also in the face of the common sense of ordinary citizens serving as jurors. The "unreasonable investigation" and "unreasonable prosecution" that the ruling party screams about so loudly have never once been proven in reality.

Looking at the shamelessness of those who now steal the shrouds of the dead, claiming they are being "suppressed like Roh Moo-hyun" while under investigation for the very crimes of power that erupted from within their own camp, is enough to make one nauseous.

Using this absurd exploitation of the dead as an excuse, what they are currently trying to do is "abolish the prosecution's supplementary investigation authority," which essentially breaks the spine of public safety. The dismal consequences of this were already reaching our daily lives even before the legislation was passed.

Look at the social news pouring in these days. Police willingly bury cases of split-contribution bribes by claiming there was no *quid pro quo*, and when a senior police officer destroys evidence of his own child's illegal filming, his superiors quietly turn a blind eye.

In a sense, the police are providing a terrifying "preview" of how many innocent cases involving ordinary people will be buried without a whisper once the supplementary investigation authority is completely destroyed.

Perhaps they think it will be "better" because we will lose the means to even know what's happening? In a vacuum where the oversight of prosecutors, who are legal experts, has vanished, only ordinary people without money or connections will become the victims, shedding tears of blood in front of closed police station doors.

To protect their own honey pots and provide a shield for the powerful, they are using the pretext of "not repeating the tragedy of Roh Moo-hyun" to completely break the brakes of the judicial system standing in their way. This is the truly chilling tragedy amidst the ashes of this massive collapse of public safety.

Whom will the countless ordinary people, who will be unfairly cast aside at the doors of police stations and left screaming in the hell of endless litigation, eventually resent?

The moment they realize that the reason their last legal safety net, which could have cleared their names, has vanished is because powerful figures used a deceased former president as a pretext for judicial destruction, a painful sigh may once again burst forth from the lips of the people:

"It’s all because of Roh Moo-hyun."

◆ Author Park Joo-hyun

Composer, music director, columnist, and essayist. They actively express their opinions on political, current, and social issues on Facebook, garnering sympathy from many. They have published the essay collection "Crossing the Stormy Sea."