Justice Chief Ahn Replaced After 43 Hours on the Job

With the appointment of Ahn Dong-su as justice minister blowing up in his face, President Kim Dae-jung sacked the human-rights lawyer Wednesday and chose Choi Kyung-won, former vice justice minister, as his replacement.

"The new minister has worked at major posts in the justice system," said Park Joon-young, presidential spokesman. "We expect him to contribute to the prosecution in carrying out the administration of law."

Mr. Ahn, whose appointment only 43 hours earlier had taken everyone, including himself, by surprise, saw it go down in flames because of a document in which he vowed to help the ruling party retain the Blue House in next year's election.

The president accepted Mr. Ahn's resignation shortly before signing the Human Rights Act. Presidential spokesman said the resignation had been requested. "Mr. Ahn said that he did not see the text in question," he said, "but giving the impression that he is lying would bear on his performance as minister and burden the president."

Meeting with reporters camped out in his residential area, Mr. Ahn apologized to the people. But at the departing ceremony held at the Justice Ministry, he said that "the document in question was not an acceptance speech. I have no intention to avoid a situation in which a document saved on a computer was obtained through coercion of a female employee barely 20 years old."

The new justice minister is a lawyer with the Kim & Chang law firm. Unlike Mr. Ahn, he is a career prosecutor who climbed as high as vice justice minister. Mr. Choi, 55, served 16 months in that post from March 1998 through June 1999, quitting when Park Soon-yong became prosecutor general and Shin Seung-nam the deputy prosecutor general in 1999.

He hails from Seoul, a factor considered in the decision, because the rest of the top justicial, security and intelligence posts are filled by men from President Kim's region, the Cholla provinces. Mr. Choi has long been on the short-list to succeed as justice minister, presidential aides said.

The ill-fated appointment of Mr. Ahn, the latest in the string of blows to the president and his party, caused dissension in the ruling camp. The Millennium Democrat leadership denounced Mr. Ahn's appointment Wednesday and called on the president to sack him. The leaders also demanded that whoever recommended Mr. Ahn be held responsible. The rumor mill identifies that person as Director General Shin Kuhn of the National Intelligence Service, who graduated from same college as Mr. Ahn. Mr. Shin denied it.

The purported acceptance speech was leaked to the press and made public when a 20-year-old female employee printed the text from Mr. Ahn's computer while he attended the appointment ceremony Monday at the Blue House. It expressed gratitude to the president for his "immense grace and favor," and pledged to "do my best to help win the presidential election."

Mr. Ahn is the shortest-lived cabinet member in the Kim Dae-jung administration. In 1999, the former prosecutor-general, Kim Tae-joung, resigned after 16 days on the job as justice minister over a lobbying scandal involving his wife and an internal prosecution scandal. In August 2000, the then-education minister, Song Ja, resigned after 24 days when civic groups revealed that he had illegally received securities from Samsung Electronics, on whose board of directors he sat. In June 1999, the then-environment minister, Sohn Sook, was forced to quit for receiving $20,000 from sponsoring companies while he was on a prearranged performance tour in Russia.

by Kim Jin-kook