South Korea's president to pardon jailed ex-Justice Minister Cho Kuk

FILE - Cho Kuk, leader of the South Korean Rebuilding Korea Party, clenches his fist during a campaign rally for the upcoming parliamentary election on April 10, in Seoul, South Korea, on April 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s president will pardon jailed former justice minister and liberal ally Cho Kuk this week, officials said Monday, cutting short his two-year sentence for falsifying academic records to help his children enter prestigious schools. The decision will also reinstate Cho’s right to run in elections, likely reviving a political career once seen as having presidential aspirations. But it could also prove to be a divisive move for liberal President Lee Jae Myung, as the scandal surrounding Cho had struck a deep nerve in a country notorious for its educational zeal and fiercely competitive school environment.

Lee, who won an early election in June to replace ousted conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, said pardoning Cho and some other convicted politicians and public officials, including some conservatives, would help promote political unity.

But the conservative People Power Party criticized the pardon, accusing Lee of arrogance and abusing his presidential powers to release and reinstate Cho, who “trampled on the fairness and common sense of future generations.”

The party was also critical of Lee’s decision to pardon former liberal lawmaker Yoon Meehyang, who was convicted of embezzling funds while leading a group supporting Korean survivors of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery. Cho will be among 2,188 people — including convicted politicians, business leaders, and former officials — receiving pardons on Friday’s Liberation Day, which marks the Korean Peninsula’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II. Cho, who launched the minor Rebuilding Korea Party before last April’s legislative elections, had been serving a two-year prison term since December after the Supreme Court upheld various charges, including abuse of power and forging documents to help his children enter elite schools. The controversy, which erupted in 2019 and forced Cho to resign as justice minister, fueled public anger in a country grappling with widening inequality and an intensely competitive education system, and hurt the popularity of then-liberal President Moon Jae-in.

Cho’s party supported Lee’s candidacy during the June presidential election, which was set up after Yoon was formally removed from office in April over his short-lived martial law imposition in December.