단상斷想

Han Dong-hoon and the People Power Party's attack on Kim Seung-won, while framed as personnel verification, is essentially a battle over the direction of the second Lee Jae-myung administration's legal and prosecutorial power and the president's judicial risks. However, to evaluate this offensive, a question must first be asked. Do the lawmakers of a party not free from responsibility for the December 3rd internal rebellion and Han Dong-hoon, who has symbolized the Yoon Seok-yeol prosecution and legal power, truly have the right to judge Kim Seung-won's 'justice' and 'fairness'? The scene where the party whose qualifications are shaky speaks as if prosecuting the other's morality is precisely the distorted starting point of this dispute.

On August 30, 2026, when President Lee Jae-myung nominated Kim Seung-won as Minister of Justice, succeeding Jeong Seong-ho, Han Dong-hoon characterized him as "the representative of the Lee Jae-myung indictment withdrawal group, who will shamelessly invoke investigative command to withdraw indictments more than anyone else." The People Power Party demanded his withdrawal, stating, "The defendant's seat is where he belongs." The hearing without witnesses on September 15 and the Democratic Party's sole adoption of the suitability report on the 17th show that the offensive did not lead to his downfall and the appointment process moved forward. The issue is not the firepower of the attack, but the position of the attacker.

Kim Seung-won, born in 1969, graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in public law and completed the 28th class of the Judicial Research and Training Institute. He served as a judge in the Jeonju District Court and Suwon District Court, then as a lawyer, and later as an administrative official in the Office of the Senior Secretary to the President for Political Affairs during the Moon Jae-in administration. He was elected as a first-term lawmaker for Suwon Gap in 2020 and re-elected in 2024. As the ruling party's 간사 (chief secretary) on the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, he virtually designed the amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act, which included the complete abolition of direct investigative powers for prosecutors, the separation of investigation and prosecution, and the establishment of a public prosecution office and a central investigation agency. During Lee Jae-myung's leadership, he served as the chairman of the Committee for Countermeasures against Prosecutorial Dictatorship and Political Suppression and was also a co-representative of the indictment withdrawal group. The reason the opposition views him as a 'dangerous combination' is clear: if the architect of prosecutorial reform also holds executive power, the inertia of case handling and personnel logic accumulated by the Yoon Seok-yeol era's prosecution could be shaken.

한동훈의 공세가 격렬한 이유도 같은 자리에 있다. 그는 윤석열 정부의 법무부 장관이었고, 검찰 직접수사권과 조직 논리를 지키려 했던 인물이다. 10월 2일 개정 형소법 시행과 공소청 출범을 앞두고 김승원을 장관에 앉히는 것은, 한동훈이 지키려 한 체계의 해체를 현장에서 완성하는 인사다. 론스타 항소 반대, 대장동 남욱 변호 이력을 꺼내 “나라를 망칠 사람”이라고 부르는 것은 그 상실감을 도덕 언어로 번역한 것이다. 그러나 한동훈이 말하는 ‘나라’와 ‘검찰의 공정’이, 윤석열 검찰의 선택적 수사와 정치 사건 몰이와 얼마나 다른지는 별개의 검증을 요구한다. 자신이 속했던 권력의 수사 관행을 기준으로 상대를 재단하는 일은, 정의의 언어가 아니라 기득 검찰권의 자기변호에 가깝다.

The People Power Party's qualification issue is more direct. In the process of legally resolving the controversy surrounding former President Yoon Suk-yeol's responsibility for insurrection and insurrection-related acts, such as emergency martial law and obstruction of arrest, it is an inverted scene for the party that was the ruling power of that regime to refer to the opposing candidate as being in the 'defendant's dock'. When a force that stood in the midst of an insurrection attempts to exclusively judge the morality of the Minister of Justice, that judgment can no longer speak of universal justice. One can raise issues with Kim Seung-won's suspended indictment for Genencell, the family cooperative recording, and the complaint messages. However, the moment that questioning transforms into a narrative of 'the party responsible for insurrection upholding justice,' the legitimacy of the offensive collapses on its own.

The Genencell controversy was the key sword in that inverted narrative. In October 2021, Kim Seung-won, at the request of broker Yang, sent texts and made calls to then-MFDS Commissioner Kim Kang-lip requesting expedited processing, and the MFDS approved it in about two weeks. The prosecution raised the issue of quid pro quo, such as a promise of 5 million won in donations, but the case was closed with a suspended indictment in 2024. Han Dong-hoon repeatedly disclosed remarks like “Seung-won oppa,” “It’s stuck at the manager level? Okay,” and that hundreds of billions could be earned if approved, as well as suspicions of home visits. The fact that the court in the first trial of the Genencell founder found it difficult to conclude the nature of the request and the quid pro quo, and that the review for a suspended indictment began before the declaration of martial law, contradicts Han Dong-hoon's claim that 'the disposition was overturned by external pressure.' Nevertheless, the circumstances under which materials close to investigation records leaked outside the hearing have not been explained. He could not answer how different the method of using Yoon Seok-yeol's prosecution's internal data as a weapon for political attacks is from the 'political prosecution' that Han Dong-hoon has criticized.

The September 15 hearing merely moved that offensive to the courtroom and failed to restore its legitimacy. The People Power Party requested 44 witnesses, but the Democratic Party refused, and about 14 hours passed without witnesses. Kim Seung-won called Genencell a difficult grievance, shed tears over the family cooperative, and apologized for the staff's filming of documents. The opposition relentlessly pursued the 93 clinical trial participants, the recorded conversation favoring Suwon City, and the hiring of the son of the judge who dismissed the warrant. However, what the hearing proved was not the 'confirmation of suspicions,' but the asymmetry in which parties to the internal political struggle elevated the other's grievance texts and family care to evidence of national corruption.

The relevance to the Lee Jae-myung case should be viewed through the same lens. The Supreme Court overturned the election law violation case with a guilty verdict, but the trial is currently suspended due to presidential immunity from prosecution. The same applies to other cases, such as the Daejang-dong case. It is structurally difficult for a minister to dismiss a case that has already been indicted and gone all the way to the Supreme Court through a withdrawal of prosecution. What the opposition fears is not the immediate dismissal of the retrial, but the possibility that personnel appointments, assignments, command, and supervision will change after the launch of the Public Prosecution Office, unlike during the Yoon Suk-yeol era. Kim Seung-won distinguished between his claims for withdrawal of prosecution when he was a lawmaker and his duties as a minister, and drew a line on the prosecutor general's command and the special prosecutor's artificial power to withdraw prosecution. His answer may be ambiguous. However, it is inconsistent for those who were involved in the way the Yoon Suk-yeol prosecution handled political cases to now only raise issues with the 'politicization of command authority.'

On the 17th, the Legislation and Judiciary Committee confirmed the procedural limitations of that offensive. After all the People Power Party members withdrew, the Democratic Party unilaterally adopted the personnel hearing report as appropriate. The Blue House stated that there were “no confirmed factual suspicions,” and the threshold for appointment was opened. The opposition is talking about street protests, but it is difficult to institutionally block the president's appointment after the report is adopted. This is the result of unqualified attacks failing to cause a downfall.

The reason for targeting Kim Seung-won is clear. He is the architect of prosecutorial reform and was on the legal team responding to the Lee Jae-myung case. If he becomes a minister, reform will shift from legislation to execution. The motive to check that change is politically understandable. However, understanding and qualification are different. The moment a party at the center of the debate over responsibility for insurrection and Han Dong-hoon, who has represented the Yoon Suk-yeol prosecution and Ministry of Justice, become the sole arbiters of justice, the verification of Kim Seung-won is already a biased court. The remaining issue is not whether he is a perfect candidate. It is whether a force that has used investigative powers as a weapon for politics can, in the name of justice, block an appointment that would reclaim that weapon. The unilateral adoption on the 17th is the National Assembly majority's initial answer to that question.