Moon Jae-in

Biography

Moon Jae-in was born in 1953 in Geoje to parents who had fled North Korea during the Korean War, and he grew up poor in Busan. While studying law at Kyung Hee University he was arrested, jailed and expelled for organising a protest against Park Chung Hee's Yushin constitution, and he was then conscripted into the special forces. He passed the bar examination in 1980 but, because of his activist record, was not appointed a judge or prosecutor.

In private practice in Busan he worked with Roh Moo-hyun on labour and human rights cases. He managed Roh's successful 2002 presidential campaign and then served in his administration as senior secretary for civil affairs and, from 2007 to 2008, as presidential chief of staff; in 2004 he led Roh's legal defence against impeachment before the Constitutional Court.

Moon entered elected politics in 2012, winning a National Assembly seat in Busan and losing that year's presidential election to Park Geun-hye. He led the Democratic Party from 2015 to 2016. After Park's impeachment he won the May 2017 presidential election. As president he met Kim Jong Un at three inter-Korean summits in 2018 and joined Kim and Donald Trump at the DMZ in 2019; at home he raised the minimum wage, cut the maximum working week and won praise for the early COVID-19 response. He left office in May 2022, and in April 2025 prosecutors indicted him on a bribery charge.