Photo : YONHAP News
Senior Prosecutor Jung Yu-mi, who objected to the decision to abandon an appeal in the first trial of the Daejang-dong development corruption case and filed a lawsuit alleging that she was effectively demoted for her actions, won her first trial.
The Seoul Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of Jung in her lawsuit against Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho, seeking to overturn a December reshuffle that had sidelined her to a line prosecutor position at the Daejeon High Prosecutors’ Office.
The court found that the reshuffle at the time was “highly unusual” and added that, given prosecutorial personnel practices, Minister Jung appears to have sought to induce the plaintiff to resign, which constituted a deviation and abuse of personnel discretion.
In December, the Justice Ministry had reassigned three prosecutor general-level officials—Park Hyuk-soo of the Daegu District Prosecutors’ Office, Kim Chang-jin of the Busan District Prosecutors’ Office, and Park Hyun-cheol of the Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office—to research positions at the Judicial Research and Training Institute. At that time, Jung Yu-mi was serving as a research fellow there.
All the affected prosecutors had previously expressed strong objections to the leadership’s November decision to forgo an appeal and demanded a clear explanation from then-acting Prosecutor General Noh Man-seok.
Jung Yu-mi filed her lawsuit against the justice minister the day after the personnel announcement.