(From far left) President Lee Jae-myung, lawyer Song Young-hoon, and Justice Minister Jeong Seong-ho. [디지털타임스 DB]
Regarding the live broadcast of business reports from public institutions presided over by President Lee Jae-myung, claims have been raised that the public is being deceived with false statistics.
Attorney Song Young-hoon, who is classified as a pro-Korean group (pro-Han Dong-hoon), harshly criticized Minister of Justice Jeong Sung-ho, saying, “This is a country where neither the minister nor the director-general can be trusted,” and “Minister Jeong Sung-ho, who flattered us with false statistics, must be held accountable.”
According to the political circles on the 21st, lawyer Song Young-hoon said this on his SNS the previous day, saying, “Accidents continue day after day in public institution business reports that are broadcast live while President Lee Jae-myung personally presides.”
According to Attorney Song, on the 11th, the answer of Byun Sang-moon, head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, who earned the nickname ‘Soybean GPT’ by immediately answering President Lee’s annual soybean import volume and domestic soybean production amount, turned out to be an incorrect number. Afterwards, it was reported that Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Song Mi-ryeong personally corrected this.
Attorney Song claims that on the 19th, Justice Minister Jeong Seong-ho reported false statistics. Minister Jeong made a statement to the effect of, ‘We have increased parole by 30% since the president took office.’
In response to this, Attorney Song continued to argue, “When I heard this, no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t understand it, so I looked up the statistics myself. If parole had increased that much, there is no way it wouldn’t have already been talked about in the legal community before the minister revealed the statistics himself.”
“Sure enough, when I checked the accurate statistics, the numbers that Minister Jeong Sung-ho publicly mentioned were completely different from the truth,” he said, adding, “After President Lee took office until last month, the Ministry of Justice Parole Review Committee was held a total of six times.” It is said that there were △regular in June, △regular in July, △regular in Commemoration of Liberation Day (August), △regular in September, △regular in Corrections Day (October), and △regular in November. Attorney Song said, “A total of 8,521 people were subject to review, and 6,229 people were judged eligible for parole (eligibility rate 73.10%).”
Before the regime changed, it is said that six Parole Review Committee meetings were held, including △ Christmas in 24, △ Regular in January of 25, △ Commemorating March 1st (February 24), △ Regular in March, △ Commemorating Buddha’s Birthday (4.25), and △ Regular in May. A total of 8,754 inmates were subject to review, of which 6,233 were judged eligible (71.20% eligibility rate). Attorney Song claims that the eligibility rate only increased by 1.9 percentage points, and the absolute number of people decreased by four.
He said that he compared again ‘compared to the same period last year’ just in case. “From June 2024 to November of that year, 8,586 people were subject to review by the six parole review committees, of which 6,148 were judged eligible (eligibility rate 71.60%). Even compared to the same period last year, the parole eligibility rate only increased by 1.5 percentage points, and the absolute number of people only increased by 1.32% (81 people).” said.
According to Attorney Song, Minister Jeong took office on July 19th of this year, and the regular parole review committee meeting for July this year was held on July 18th, so there have been four parole review committee meetings since the minister took office until last month. A total of 5,887 people were screened, and 4,369 were deemed eligible for parole (eligibility rate of 74.21%). In the same period last year, 5,666 people were screened and 4,149 were deemed eligible (73.23% eligibility rate). The eligibility rate increased by 0.98 percentage points, and the absolute number of people increased by 5.3% (220 people). Attorney Song, who presented these statistics, pointed out, “No matter how you calculate it, there is a significant difference from Minister Jeong’s report that ‘there was a 30% increase.’”
He said, “It is difficult to reconcile this data with the response that ‘the release of criminals has increased since the president, who had four criminal convictions and experience of arrest, took office.’ However, a more serious problem is that the attorney general of a country reports false statistics to the president during a business report broadcast live to the entire nation without properly checking the parole statistics. At this point, it is truly a country where neither the minister nor the director can be trusted.”
Attorney Song mentioned three measures targeting President Lee and the ministers of each ministry.
He criticized, “First, President Lee must hold Minister Jeong responsible for making a false report in front of the entire nation. This is not something to be taken lightly, as the intent to flatter the President can be seen in the context of the false report, ‘Parole has also been increased by 30% since the president took office.’”
He continued, “Secondly, the live broadcast of work reports that causes both the minister and the director to repeat ‘over’ should stop,” and added, “I’m sure other countries’ embassies are watching closely as false statistics repeatedly appear in the public and official work reports of the Korean government. Looking at these scenes, the Republic of Korea is an ‘easy-going country’ with poor public service discipline. It is a disgrace to the country.”
He added, “Thirdly, in the future, we should be instructed not to even dream of raising the parole eligibility rate so that reality eventually follows false statistics. The government should not become a ‘Procrustes’ bed’ where legs are cut off according to the length of the bed,” adding, “I want to live in a country where the people do not have to find such statistics and check the facts themselves.”
In response to this, the Ministry of Justice issued a press release explaining, “In order to fundamentally improve these problems, the Ministry of Justice prepared the ‘2026 Parole Expansion Plan’ last November, and plan to more actively implement parole expansion starting next year.”
An official from the Ministry of Justice added, “Going forward, we will maintain strict parole reviews for violent criminals, but by expanding parole to prisoners with a low risk of reoffending, we will encourage prisoners’ voluntary will to improve, lower the recidivism rate, and lay the foundation for prisoners to return to healthy neighbors in our society.”
Reporter Kwon Jun-young kjykjy@dt.co.kr
