Uncompromising prosecutor's crusade to bring back justice

Yoon Suk-yeol / Yonhap

By Kang Hyun-kyung

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is well-known as a man with an uncompromising spirit.

This trait has been a double-edged sword for him during his 26 years of work as a prosecutor, including less than two years as prosecutor-general.

It helped him earn a reputation as a prosecutor with integrity. However, it also played its part in cutting his career short.

He emerged as a star prosecutor in October 2013 following his bombshell disclosure -- during the National Assembly's examination of the prosecution -- that he had been pressured to stop investigating the role of the country's spy agency during the 2012 presidential election. Back then, he had been leading the probe into National Intelligence Service agents, on charges of meddling in the election so as to create favorable online public opinion for then-ruling party candidate Park Geun-hye, who ultimately won the election.

Opposition politicians praised Yoon, calling him a heroic prosecutor who resisted calls to curry favor with the powerful president.

His courage to speak out, however, came at the cost of his job security. He was suspended for three months. In the reshuffle that followed, months after his rebellion, he was dismissed and transferred to the Daegu High Court.

He was a man in exile there. "He was a loner there and had to eat lunch alone," according to Kim Yeon-woo, the author of the book "Yoon Suk-yeol: A Warm-Hearted Man."

"Prosecutors deal with excessive amounts of work almost every day and therefore it was tough for his coworkers to find time to get to know him better. It seems that their ‘leave him alone' stance was inevitable," the book reads.

His life as a stranger in the district attorney's office continued for several years until December 2016, when he was called upon by independent counsel Park Young-soo to join the team to investigate then-sitting President Park Geun-hye about her abuses of power.

Yoon said that his father -- retired professor of applied statistics Yoon Ki-joong -- is his mentor and life coach.

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"In my twenties, he and I had a lot of conversations over drinks after dinner. I was unemployed then (after graduating from university) and studying to pass the state bar exam," he said on the YouTube channel run by the People Power Party (PPP).

"As you know, I failed the exam several times until I finally passed it, but he would never say a word about it or blame me for that. As a professor who first studied economics and whose interest then moved into statistics, he has been interested in the polarization of wealth between the haves and have-nots, as well as inequality, and researched these topics all his life. While conversing with my father every evening, which would continue late into the night, I naturally came to take an interest in these issues. In the second floor of our house, there was a small library and there were a lot of good books to read. I spent time there, reading."

Yoon said his intellectual journey in that small library shaped his thinking. "I don't like authoritarianism. I am basically a libertarian and like liberal things," he said.

After failing eight times, he eventually passed the state bar exam and started his career as an entry-level prosecutor when he was 35. The late start to his career in the prosecution often times put him in awkward situations. When he worked in the Busan District Prosecutors' Office, his boss was a former classmate from Seoul National University. But most of the times, he got along well with his coworkers, thanks to his good interpersonal skills.

His election poster offers a clue to his abrupt career transition from a prosecutor to a presidential candidate running in the election on the conservative PPP ticket. On top of the poster, there is his campaign slogan. It reads, "Raised by the Korean public, Yoon Suk-yeol, a president who will change the nation's future."

Whenever Yoon is asked why he decided to join politics and run in the presidential election, his answer has been same. He said he was called upon by the public and was determined to declare his bid to run in the election to respond to their calls to right the wrongs in the nation's broken system regarding the rule of law and bring back justice.

During a TV debate, Justice Party candidate Sim Sang-jung claimed that the first part of Yoon's slogan needed some modification, suggesting "Raised by the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK)," instead of "by the Korean public," would be more fitting and accurate in explaining his rise.

It was the ruling DPK that made Yoon the most in-demand politician after he, then as prosecutor-general, took aim at President Moon Jae-in's key aides, in an anti-corruption investigation.

President Moon had handpicked Yoon for the position of prosecutor-general, which had come as a surprise to those who were familiar with the selection process, as he was considered an underdog. Presenting the certificate of his appointment to him at the presidential office, Moon encouraged Yoon to continue to be bold and fearless enough to go ahead with investigating powerful people if necessary, without fear of the consequences.

President Moon's fateful remarks later became the prelude to his severed ties with his once favorite prosecutor.

Moon, and the DPK, became suspicious when Yoon instructed the prosecution to investigate Moon's close aide, then-Justice Minister Cho Kuk, who was accused of several allegations of corruption and the abuse of power. President Moon and his handpicked prosecutor-general clashed after Yoon gave the green light to investigate allegations that Cheong Wa Dae meddled into the Ulsan by-election in order to get President Moon's close friend elected.

"Some may say they don't understand why enforcing the law is a tough job. There are laws there, so you can enforce them whenever or wherever you need to. But in reality, it's not as simple as it sounds, because sometimes implementing the law requires a great deal of sacrifice from law enforcement officials, commitment and even courage," Yoon said, adding that living up to his commitments as a prosecutor, who put the rule of law first, has been demanding indeed.