SEOUL, South Korea — Conservatives in South Korea — out of power and, in the high-profile cases of former President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife, facing serious legal jeopardy — found little to cheer in the list of pending pardons released by the country’s left-leaning presidents this week.

But two names in particular on President Lee Jae-myung’s list of pardons — a presidential tradition on the country’s annual Liberation Day holiday, which falls on Friday — have irked the liberal president’s political opponents on the right.

Mr. Lee announced Monday he plans to pardon 2,188 business people, activists and politicians — including Cho Kuk, a short-lived Justice minister and a political nemesis of the jailed Mr. Yoon, and Yoon Mee-hyang, a noted advocate for “comfort women” who generated Seoul-Tokyo frictions.

Weaponization of law enforcement?

Mr. Cho, a political ally of the current president, lost his seat in the National Assembly in December after losing an appeal of a two-year prison sentence for falsifying documents that helped his children gain entrance to elite schools. He had already been forced in 2019 to resign his position in the administration of Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president from 2017-2022, amid ongoing clashes with the country’s then-top prosecutor — Yoon Suk Yeol.

Mr. Yoon’s defiance of the Moon administration led conservatives to woo him to run as the People Power Party’s candidate in the 2022 presidential election. He won that race with a narrow victory over Lee Jae-myung.

Mr. Yoon’s impeachment opened the door to a new presidential election, handily won by Mr. Lee in June.

Mr. Yoon is now being investigated by the prosecutors he formerly led.

And a pardon for the 60-year-old Mr. Cho could open the door for his re-entry to politics.

It’s a Japan thing …

Mr. Lee, a lifelong Japan-basher, dialed back his criticism enough to win June’s election, but the pardon of Yoon Mee-hyang is a reminder of the animosity he and many of his countrymen still fell over the WWII atrocities committed by the Japanese.

Ms. Yoon was the highest-profile advocate of “comfort women” — the girls and women from across Asia who served in Japanese military brothels during the war.

While numbers are unclear, evidence suggests a considerable proportion – possibly a majority – were Koreans.

From 1990, Ms. Yoon led a high-profile NGO, the Korean Council, that promoted the term “sex slavery” to illustrate the women’s plight. The group also promoted a weekly demonstration around a comfort woman statue emplaced outside Seoul’s Japanese embassy, to Tokyo’s displeasure.

Through these and related efforts, comfort women gained global notoriety, with statues sprouting in locations including San Francisco and Berlin.

Ms. Yoon used her profile to shame comfort women who accepted reparations from Japan, and angrily argued that Japanese apologies were insufficient or insincere — dooming Tokyo’s efforts.

She also served as a lawmaker in a satellite party of the DPK, during Mr. Moon’s term, when Seoul-Tokyo relations plummeted to a nadir.

In 2020, a former comfort woman accused Ms. Yoon of generating hatred between Japanese and Korean youth, of exhausting elderly victims, and of appropriating funds destined for their welfare.

In 2024, Ms. Yoon was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to an 18-month suspended sentence. An appeal failed.

She never accepted guilt, but suffered reputational damage. The Korean Council lost steam.

Under Mr. Yoon’s presidency, with the decades-long protests fizzling, historical disputes between Seoul and Tokyo cooled, enabling improved bilateral relations and trilateral security activities with Washington.

To some surprise, Mr. Lee has followed Mr. Yoon’s lead, not Mr. Moon’s, and maintained good relations with Tokyo.

But one of the country’s leading conservative newspapers, the Chosun Ilbo, was dubious about the two pardons in an Aug. 12 editorial.

It called Mr. Cho’s crime “a clear case of unfairness and injustice,” while Ms. Yoon’s pardon was “nothing short of absurd.”

The Chosun admitted conservatives have not been “blameless” when it comes to pardons, but that the upcoming tranche are “…deeply wrong and went too far.”

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.