Kang Shin-ok (Korean: 강신옥; 姜信玉; 28 November 1936 – 31 July 2021) was a South Korean lawyer-turned-politician who served as a member of the National Assembly in the 13th and 14th legislatures.
Main activities
Kang was a representative first-generation human rights lawyer under the Park Chung-hee regime, defending defendants in cases such as the People's Revolutionary Party incident and the National Federation of Democratic Students incident. After passing both the administrative and judicial examinations, he worked as a judge before becoming a lawyer. In April 1974, while defending defendants in the National Federation of Democratic Students incident, he became the first lawyer in the history of the judiciary to be detained in the courtroom while pleading a case.12 After the October 26 Incident, at the request of Cardinal Kim Soo-hwan he defended Kim Jae-gyu, and continued his work as a human rights lawyer before being elected to the National Assembly in the 13th and 14th legislatures, where he carried out legislative duties. In the 1996 15th National Assembly election, he lost as an independent candidate, and in 2003 he withdrew from political activity.
Biography
Early activities
Kang was from Yeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. While attending the Faculty of Law at Seoul National University, he passed both the administrative examination (10th) and the judicial examination (11th)3 and, after completing his probationary judicial training, was appointed as a judge in 1962. After about a year and a half as a judge, he was demoted to the Gyeongju branch court for political reasons during Park Chung-hee's time as Supreme Council member; regarding this as a sign that judicial independence had not been secured, he resigned from the judiciary in protest and became a lawyer. Rumors have circulated that he resigned because of the Cho Yong-soo case, but this is not true.
Human rights lawyer activities
Kang became famous as one of the first-generation human rights lawyers, alongside Lee Don-myung, Hong Sung-woo, and Cho Yong-rae, serving as counsel in the People's Revolutionary Party incident, the National Federation of Democratic Students incident, the March 1st Democratic Declaration for National Salvation incident, the October 26 incident, the YWCA fake wedding incident, and the Bucheon Police Station sexual torture incident. In July 1974, at the final hearing in the National Federation of Democratic Students case for related defendants including Yu In-tae, a former Democratic Party member of the National Assembly, he argued: "The government is branding patriotic students as communists under the National Security Act and others and demanding death sentences; this is judicial murder. One may resist bad laws." 4 At that time, Kang, a former member of the National Assembly, was detained during his argument on charges including contempt of court and suffered greatly.12 On 20 September 1974, at the first trial before the Emergency General Court-Martial, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment with ten years' suspension of qualifications, and at the appellate trial before the Emergency High Court-Martial, his appeal was dismissed.2 Fortunately, he was released the following year by a presidential special measure.5 In 1986, together with junior human rights lawyers such as Cho Yong-rae and Lee Sang-soo, he founded Jeongbeophoe, the predecessor of the Lawyers for a Democratic Society.
Defense in the October 26 incident
When the October 26 Incident occurred, Park Chung-hee was killed and Kim Jae-gyu was arrested and handed over to a court-martial. At the request of Cardinal Kim Soo-hwan, Kang took on Kim Jae-gyu's defense.6 After Kim Jae-gyu's death sentence was confirmed on 20 May 1980, he petitioned the Supreme Court for a retrial; on that day he was taken by Defense Security Command personnel to the Seobinggo detachment, where he endured severe hardship for about two weeks.7 He was accused of defamation of Park Geun-hye on the grounds that he had campaigned to save Kim Jae-gyu, a martial law offender, and had brought up the relationship between Choi Tae-min and Park Geun-hye. He countered that these were legitimate defense activities carried out as counsel, and he was not punished further.
In the appellate trial of the October 26 incident, he adopted a strategy of exposing Park Chung-hee's drinking and womanizing, because this was a way to highlight the legitimacy of the October 26 action. If the October 26 action were recognized to some degree as legitimate and unavoidable, the defendants' charge of murder with intent to commit insurrection might be mitigated in sentencing or reduced to simple murder. That was the path to spare the defendants the death penalty.8
Later, because of this matter, he maintained a strained relationship with Park Geun-hye. Before the 2002 16th presidential election, he took part as a member of the preparatory committee for Chung Mong-joon's Uri Party 21 (Gukmin Tonghap 21). At that time there was a movement for cooperation between Chung Mong-joon and Park Geun-hye, and he fell into an awkward position between them. It is said that because of Kang's history of defending Kim Jae-gyu, Park Geun-hye's opposition was intense, and in the end the cooperation itself fell through.9 Afterwards he retired from politics and devoted himself to legal practice.
Political activities
Ahead of the 13th National Assembly election, he was recruited into the Unification Democratic Party together with fellow Jeongbeophoe lawyers including Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Kwang-il. In the 1988 13th National Assembly election, as a candidate of the Unification Democratic Party, he ran in the Mapo District B constituency of Seoul and won, defeating candidates including Democratic Justice Party candidate Park Ju-chun and Peace Democratic Party candidate Kim Seung-mok. In particular, together with Kim Kwang-il and others, he actively joined the Sangdo-dong faction, and in 1990 took part in Kim Young-sam's three-party merger, participating in the founding of the Democratic Liberal Party. In the 1992 14th National Assembly election, he was eliminated from the constituency nomination, which went to Park Ju-chun, and instead was elected as a proportional representation member of the National Assembly. Nevertheless, ahead of the 15th National Assembly election in 1996, he criticized Kim Young-sam's unilateral leadership and left the New Korea Party. He then ran as an independent in the same constituency but was defeated. Afterwards, he served as an adviser and member of the Party Affairs Committee of the Grand National Party (December 2000 – January 2001), and then, except for his membership of the preparatory committee of Uri Party 21 (2002) and his role as a member and standing committee member of the Uri Party 21 Party Affairs Committee (November 2002 – January 2003), he gave up political activity.
Death
On 31 July 2021, he died of chronic illness at the age of 85.4 His burial site is the Sian Family Memorial Park in Opo-eup, Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.
Education
Family
He has relatives including Kang Han-seung (CEO of Coupang), Kang Dong-seung (director of Yonsei Hill Dermatology Clinic), Kang Jeong-eun, and a son-in-law, Hong Yun-o (weekly editor of the Korea Construction Newspaper).
Footnotes