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A decision to lose — season two

Published: 10 Nov. 2025, 00:02

Choi Hyeon-chul

The author is a national news editor at the JoongAng Ilbo.

In December 2020, former President Yoon Suk Yeol, then the prosecutor general, was suspended for two months over allegations of the illegal surveillance of judges, interference in investigations including the "Channel A" case, and undermining political neutrality. Yoon filed a lawsuit to overturn the disciplinary action and requested an injunction. Eight days later, the court accepted the injunction, allowing him to return to his post. Three months later, he resigned and entered politics. But in October 2021, ahead of the People Power Party’s presidential primary, the Seoul Administrative Court ruled that the disciplinary action was legitimate. Although he had already resigned from the prosecution, the ruling left him with the label of having violated neutrality and surveilled judges — an untenable burden heading into a presidential election. He immediately appealed, and during that process, he won the presidency.

Nam Wook, an attorney indicted over the Daejang-dong development scandal, arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District on Oct. 31 for his first trial verdict. He was sentenced to prison and taken into custody in court. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

What followed sparked controversy. Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon dismissed all government attorneys who had successfully defended the disciplinary action in the first trial. The new lawyers from the Government Legal Service did not call witnesses or actively argue the case, showing little intent to win. As a result, the government lost on appeal and did not file for a final Supreme Court review.

The Democratic Party (DP), then in opposition, fiercely criticized the outcome. They mocked Han by calling it “Decision to Lose,” a play on the film "Decision to Leave" (2022). Former Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae, who led the disciplinary process, warned, “The public is not blind. Political theater will not work.”

Now the DP finds itself in a reversed position. After prosecutors decided last weekend not to appeal the Daejang-dong corruption case for five key defendants, criticism erupted. The party is insisting it was not an “abandonment of appeal,” but rather “restraint from appealing.” They argue that the sentences already exceeded one-third of the prosecution’s recommendations — one of the internal criteria for appeal. But the court recognized guilt while ruling it was difficult to determine the exact amount of financial loss, applying breach of trust under the Criminal Act instead of the more serious aggravated breach of trust under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes. Since the main defendant was acquitted of aggravated breach of trust, prosecutors are now in a weaker position to argue that the coconspirators should be convicted of it. While the ruling party warns that abolishing the crime of breach of trust would eliminate prosecutions altogether, the decision has effectively preempted controversy. What is clear is that President Lee Jae Myung, whose own trial in the case has been suspended, benefits from the prosecution’s decision. Moreover, the opportunity to recover most of the 489.5 billion won ($336 million) in alleged damages is now gone, except for the 47.3 billion won ordered to be confiscated as bribe-related funds.

To be fair, the prosecution’s longstanding practice of appealing every acquittal has been widely criticized. Even in human rights cases, prosecutors would automatically appeal despite acquittals in retrials or recommendations from truth commissions — without accountability once final innocence was confirmed. President Lee called this a “cruel practice against the people” during a Cabinet meeting in late September and ordered reforms. The Justice Ministry responded that it would change the rules, and Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho pledged to revise internal guidelines to curb mechanical appeals.

Yoon Suk Yeol, then prosecutor general, arrives at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Dec. 14, 2020, a day before the second disciplinary committee hearing. He was suspended for two months but won a court injunction eight days later that allowed him to return to duty. [NEWSIS]

A month later, on Nov. 4, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office announced it would not appeal the acquittal of a father and daughter wrongfully convicted in the infamous “cyanide makgeolli [Korean rice wine] murder case.” Investigators and prosecutors on the retrial team had wanted to appeal, but senior officials stopped them. For a moment, it seemed the prosecution was truly changing.

But public sentiment shifted again when President Lee became the second beneficiary of this new restraint. Some now wonder whether the makgeolli case was merely setting the stage for the “main event” — the Daejang-dong scandal. Critics ask how different this is from when the previous administration was accused of making a “decision to lose” to erase a powerful figure’s disciplinary record.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.