The President and the Minister of Justice, who have usurped the place of the law, are making a mockery of the rule of law by acting in lockstep. Hanmi Ilbo Graphic

President Lee Jae-myung’s remarks at the recent Cabinet meeting, where he questioned the prosecution’s practices regarding appeals and final appeals by asking, “If you are in doubt about whether a person is guilty or innocent, isn’t it innocence?” raise serious concerns about the level of legal common sense held by the nation’s top leader. 

The President’s intent seems to refer to the legal principles of the “presumption of innocence” or “in dubio pro reo” (when in doubt, for the accused).

However, the two principles are fundamentally different. The presumption of innocence is a constitutional principle that an accused person must be treated as innocent until proven guilty, while “in dubio pro reo” is a principle applied during the deliberation and judgment phase, mandating that a judge must acquit the defendant when evidence is insufficient. Simply extending this to the prosecution’s stage of indictment and appeals misleads the basic structure of legal procedures.

The bigger problem was the attitude of the Minister of Justice. 

Minister Jung Sung-ho echoed the President’s remarks, calling them “the basic principle of court rulings,” and further added that “the prosecution has been operating in the opposite direction.” 

The Ministry of Justice is a position that should fundamentally correct the President’s legal misconceptions and maintain a balance in the operation of the system. Instead, Minister Jung packaged the President’s remarks as if they were legally sound, thereby amplifying the distortion. The sight of the Ministry of Justice devolving into a mere “yes-man” in the face of power is a spectacle to behold.

Reducing the significance of the appellate system to mere statistical figures is also dangerous. 

Even if the rate of reversals in appellate and Supreme Court rulings is low, the fact that there are instances of rectifying the grievances of victims or ensuring justice is the essential value of the system. The President, ignoring this, concluded that “98.3% [of appeals] are just spending money to get an acquittal.” 

However, the existence of even 1% of overturned cases is evidence that the appellate system is indispensable.

Minister Jung even mentioned legal revisions, stating that “appeals should be banned except for clear legal disputes or major cases.” This shows that he has failed to even grasp the starting point of discussions on systemic reform. 

The right to appeal is not just a tool for the prosecution, but a mechanism that balances the defendant’s right to defense. The idea of restricting this based on the President’s simplified perception undermines the constitutional separation of powers and the entire criminal justice process.

Following this logic, it is no different from arguing that “Chung-Ang University Law School should be closed” because the President lacks legal common sense. The problem lies not in the educational institution, but in the President’s personal legal perception. Nevertheless, the fact that even the Minister of Justice is complying and suggesting legislative directions destroys the foundation of institutional operations. 

The reality where the President and the Minister of Justice speak with a single “political voice” before the eyes of the public is beyond serious; it is catastrophic.

What the public wants is not one-sided criticism directed at the prosecution and the courts. It is a leader who respects the constitutional order and maintains a balanced approach to the criminal justice process. 

That day's Cabinet meeting was an occasion that laid bare "the President's sub-par level of legal awareness and the sycophantic demeanor of the Justice Minister" without filter. It was a display of the crumbling rule of law and a law that shifts according to the convenience of power. It was an occasion that symbolically showed how dangerous a choice political correctness (PC) can be.

The Republic of Korea is at a critical juncture. The intensity of the remarks made by opposition lawmakers during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae speaks volumes to this.

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