Lee Jae Myung government's first prosecutor general candidates emerge as recommendation panel set to meet next week

The field of candidates for the first prosecutor general under the Lee Jae Myung government — who will also serve as the inaugural head of the newly established Public Prosecution Service, created after the abolition of the Prosecution Service — is expected to take shape soon.

According to legal circles Tuesday, the Ministry of Justice is reviewing plans to convene the Prosecutor General Candidate Recommendation Committee next week, with Monday emerging as the most likely date. Once the committee meets, a shortlist of candidates will be drawn up. The panel reviews the eligibility of those selected by the ministry and recommends at least three candidates to the justice minister, who then nominates one of them to the president for appointment.

The prosecutor general position — head of the Public Prosecution Service, formerly the Prosecution Service — has been vacant since Shim Woo-jeong stepped down in July last year following the launch of the Lee Jae Myung government. Under the old prosecution system, Deputy Prosecutors General No Man-seok and Gu Ja-hyeon served as acting heads in succession. Lee Jeong-hyeon, then a deputy prosecutor general, took over the acting role just before the Prosecution Service was abolished and has continued in that capacity under the new Public Prosecution Service.

Legal circles have named three figures as leading candidates for prosecutor general: Lee Jeong-hyeon, the current acting prosecutor general and deputy chief of the Public Prosecution Service (age 58, 27th class of the Judicial Research and Training Institute); Park Cheol-woo, the inaugural chief of the Seoul Central District Public Prosecution Service (55, 30th class); and Ye Se-min, former chief of the Chuncheon District Prosecutors' Office (52, 28th class).

Lee Jin-su, the acting justice minister and vice minister of justice who had initially been mentioned as a potential candidate, said he would not participate, citing the risk of a conflict of interest under the Act on the Prevention of Conflicts of Interest of Public Officials in the nomination process.

Lee Jeong-hyeon was appointed deputy chief of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office last month and has since served as acting head of the Public Prosecution Service. In 2020, Lee served as first deputy chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, overseeing the investigation into allegations of collusion between prosecutors and the media involving Han Dong-hoon, then a prosecutors' chief and now an independent lawmaker. On the first day at the office last month, Lee left open the possibility of withdrawing the indictment against President Lee Jae Myung, saying the outcome of a fact-finding investigation "remains to be seen."

Park Cheol-woo served as spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice under the Moon Jae-in government and was promoted to prosecutors' chief under the Lee Jae Myung government. He has long been regarded as an expert in criminal proceeds recovery, an area President Lee has shown particular interest in.

Ye Se-min was seconded to the Ministry of Justice's prosecution reform task force in 2011 and led a joint investigation team on the recovery of illegally held overseas assets in 2019 under the Moon Jae-in government. In 2021, Ye served as head of the planning and coordination division at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office before moving to lead the Chuncheon District Prosecutors' Office the following year, where Ye served for more than a year before leaving public office.