Moon's blacklist lands former ministers, secretaries in court

Politics

Published: 19 Jan. 2023, 18:30

Moon's blacklist lands former ministers, secretaries in court

Former Trade Minister Paik Un-gyu is pictured in the Daejeon District Court in this file photo from June 7, 2022. [NEWS1]

Prosecutors indicted five former Moon Jae-in administration officials on charges of abusing their authority to force governmental figures to resign.

The Seoul Eastern Prosecutors' Office Thursday indicted three former ministers and two former presidential officials about four years after suspicions arose of a blacklist of officials created by the Moon administration. The investigation into the scandal was launched last March.

The three former ministers are former Trade Minister Paik Un-gyu, Science Minister You Young-min and Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, and the two former Blue House officials are senior secretary for personnel affairs Cho Hyun-ock and secretary for personnel affairs Kim Bong-joon.

The three former ministers are accused of forcing the resignations of the heads of institutions under the Trade Ministry, the Science Ministry and the Unification Ministry and appointing candidates handpicked by the Moon administration between September 2017 and April 2018.

Prosecutors allege the former ministers forced the heads of public organizations affiliated with their ministry to step down because they were appointed by the preceding Park Geun-hye administration.

According to the prosecution, Paik called in four heads of state-run institutions separately in 2017 and told them to resign within a week.

“Up to April 2018, a total of 11 heads of institutions under the ministry submitted their letters of resignation,” the prosecution said.

Ministers usually hold the legal authority to appoint the chiefs of public organizations affiliated with their ministries – or formally offer recommendations to the president – but prosecutors say forcing them to leave before their terms officially end without a just reason amounts to abuse of power.

Former senior secretary for personnel affairs Cho is suspected of being involved in personnel decisions in June 2018 by allegedly informing interviewers that a specific candidate had been decided internally and leaking questions to the candidate.

Paik is accused of helping a person who worked for the presidential election campaign get a job at a private organization affiliated with the Trade Ministry.

Prosecutors believe former secretary for personnel affairs Kim was involved in the process.

You is facing charges of forcing the former head of the Korea Institute of Science & Technology Evaluation and Planning to resign in 2017, even though he had two years left to his term.

Former Minister Cho was indicted for repeatedly asking the head of the Korea Hana Foundation to resign.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO, LEE SU-MIN [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]