President Lee Jae-myung on Friday nominated Lee Yong-chul, the current head of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, as his candidate for justice minister, according to 한겨레. The pick fills a vacancy left open for 48 days after Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Seung-won withdrew himself from consideration over a drug-solicitation allegation.
The nomination was announced unexpectedly at a Blue House briefing. According to 한겨레, the presidential office had been weighing Democratic Party lawmakers Park Kyun-taek and Yang Bu-nam as finalists for the post before settling on Lee.
Why it matters
The appointment puts a longtime legal and administrative figure in charge of the ministry at a moment when the government says it wants to embed a new criminal justice framework. It also hands the opposition a fresh target: Lee's shared history with the president in Seongnam and his role in the hiring of a central figure in the Daejang-dong development case. Both are expected to dominate his confirmation hearing.
What the Blue House says
Chief of Staff Lim Kwang-hyun described the nominee as a lawyer who has worked on human rights protection and democratic values, and said Lee combines legal practice with administrative experience across structural reform efforts. Lim said the government expects him to help the new criminal law system take hold quickly and to deliver fair justice administration in which no one is left out or treated unjustly.
Asked why the president passed over the two lawmakers who had been under review, Lim said many people had been vetted in the search for the right candidate, without elaborating.
A career across civil society and government
Lee began in the civil society legal world as a member of the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, or Minbyun. During the 2002 presidential election he led a group of lawyers backing Roh Moo-hyun, then moved through the campaign and the presidential transition committee into the Roh administration, where he served as a senior civil affairs secretary and later as a legal affairs secretary at the Blue House.
He was the first deputy head of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration when it opened in 2006, a post he held for about ten months.
According to 한겨레, Lee also came forward during the 2007 Samsung slush-fund scandal to disclose an attempt to give him money. While serving as a senior civil affairs secretary in January 2004, he said, a lawyer on Samsung Electronics' legal team contacted him to ask whether it was acceptable to send a holiday gift. He said he later received 5 million won in cash wrapped to look like a book. In a statement at the time, he said he only realized after opening the package at home that it was concealed cash, that he photographed it as evidence in case it was needed later, and that he intended to return it to the lawyer who sent it. He published the photographs after lawyer Kim Yong-chul exposed the Samsung slush fund.
The Seongnam connection
Lee's ties to the president date to the early 2000s, before Lee Jae-myung was elected mayor of Seongnam. The two worked as lawyers at the same firm, Saegil, according to 한겨레. After the president's 2010 mayoral win, Lee joined the transition committee for the mayoralty, later served on a Seongnam citizens' happiness committee, and went on to head the Seongnam Industry Promotion Foundation. In November last year the president appointed him to lead the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.
The hiring of former Seongnam facilities management corporation planning chief Yoo Dong-gyu is likely to be the most contentious issue at the hearing. According to 한겨레, Lee sat on the recommendation committee that considered Yoo's appointment in October 2010 and gave him a notably high score, a detail that has already drawn controversy. Yoo served alongside Lee on the Seongnam mayoral transition committee that year.
Opposition reaction
The People Power Party seized on the Seongnam history, calling Lee a close associate of the president from that circle. Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk wrote on Facebook that the justice ministry post had come back around to the "Gyeongseong line," referring to Gyeonggi Province and Seongnam, and described Lee as a hidden architect of the Daejang-dong case. He further claimed Lee would be tasked with an undisclosed plan to drop prosecutions.
Floor leader Jung Jeom-sik said Lee appears to be a core figure in the Saegil network from Seongnam that has maintained a deep and long relationship with the president. He argued that after failing to install Kim Seung-won as a minister who would drop indictments, the government had looked among lawmakers belonging to a group advocating that course, including Park and Yang, before concluding it could only trust a close associate from Seongnam.
Neither the Blue House nor the nominee has responded to those characterizations in the reporting summarized here.
The confirmation hearing has yet to be scheduled. Watch for how Lee addresses the recommendation committee vote on Yoo and whether he is pressed on the scope of his role in Seongnam city appointments during the president's mayoralty.
