SEJONG — Interior Minister Yoon Ho-jung on the 12th reiterated the need for an internal audit of Lim Eun-jung, chief of the Gwangju Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, saying the review is meant to determine "whether this amounts to political activity using her position."
Meeting with reporters at the Government Complex Sejong, Yoon said that while "anyone is free to express their own views," he saw a problem in that Lim "voiced her opinions at length while she was at the prosecution service, and has continued to do so even after taking up a post at the new investigation agency."
"This is already being debated extensively in political circles, so what is the point of a senior official at the agency weighing in on it?" he said. "There is a need for an audit, given that she keeps making remarks that are of no help whatsoever."
Yoon said he had thoroughly reviewed the grounds for an audit. "In the past, prosecutors were governed by the Prosecutors Disciplinary Act, while investigators at the new agency fall under the State Public Officials Act," he said. "The two laws are not greatly different, but because disciplinary matters were handled within the Justice Ministry among prosecutors who were seniors and juniors to one another, discipline was treated with great leniency."
"It was a past practice of the prosecution service to let collective action pass, on the grounds that you cannot discipline everyone involved," he said. "Carrying that practice over into the new agency can no longer be tolerated." He added that the standard "applies not only to Chief Lim but to every investigator at the agency."
Yoon also stressed that the audit is intended to establish organizational discipline at the newly launched agency. "I believe it serves the public and the country as a whole for the agency to establish itself properly," he said. "The first button has to be fastened correctly."
"What I am saying is: do not bring the wrongful practices that were customary at the prosecution service into the new agency," he said. "It means refraining from political acts unrelated to official duties, such as intervening in politics, engaging in collective action, or even forming factions."
A day earlier, Yoon ordered the audit of Lim in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying she "appears to be mistaking the agency for a political body rather than an investigative one." The order came a week after Lim was appointed chief of the Gwangju agency on the 4th of this month.