Legal Distortion Law Takes Effect Amid Concerns Over Vague Standards

"While the Legal Distortion Law (Criminal Code amendment) has now taken effect, ambiguities regarding the application of charges and investigating authorities remain unresolved issues."

So said a senior academic figure. He identified "ambiguity" as the most significant problem with the newly established Legal Distortion Law under the Criminal Code revision. Concerns are growing that side effects such as a "ping-pong" phenomenon between investigative agencies could intensify, as the authority responsible for investigating Legal Distortion Law cases remains unclear and the legal standards for applying charges are themselves vague.

The Legal Distortion Law (Article 123-2 of the Criminal Code) stipulates that judges, prosecutors, or investigation-related personnel who commit acts intended to illegally or improperly benefit others or harm their rights during trials, indictments, prosecution maintenance, or investigations shall face up to 10 years imprisonment and up to 10 years of suspension of qualifications. Relevant acts include applying incorrect laws to criminal cases or failing to apply laws that should have been applied. However, discretionary judgments made within the reasonable scope of legal interpretation are excepted. The law also covers destroying, forging, altering, or concealing evidence related to cases, or knowingly using such evidence in trials or investigations. Additionally, illegally collecting evidence through assault, threats, or deception, or acknowledging criminal facts while knowing that legitimate evidence does not exist, also constitute acts falling under the Legal Distortion Law.

The problem is that Legal Distortion Law acts beyond evidence destruction, forgery, alteration, concealment, or evidence collection through assault or threats remain somewhat vague. Questions arise about the standards for determining what constitutes "applying incorrect laws," "failing to apply laws that should have been applied," or "acknowledging criminal facts while knowing that legitimate evidence does not exist."

A legal professional well-versed in criminal cases pointed out, "Just looking at the relevant laws, it's not easy to understand when the Legal Distortion Law can be applied. It will likely become clearer only after investigative agencies investigate Legal Distortion Law cases, go through indictment, prosecution, and trial, and the first precedent is established."

The lack of clarity regarding which investigative agency should investigate Legal Distortion Law cases is also cited as a problem. The targets of Legal Distortion Law investigations range widely from judges and prosecutors to Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) prosecutors and investigators, police, and Serious Crimes Investigation Agency investigators—and multiple investigative agencies can handle these cases. While some boundaries exist, overlapping jurisdictions raise concerns that side effects such as repeated case transfers could occur.

By law, CIO investigation targets include judges, prosecutors, and police at the rank of superintendent general or above. The Serious Crimes Investigation Agency's legally specified investigation targets include officials from the prosecution service, police officials, and CIO officials. Under the Criminal Procedure Act, police (judicial police officers) face no restrictions on investigation scope when criminal suspicion is deemed to exist.

Another legal professional analyzed, "There is nothing legally determined about whether police, the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, or the CIO should investigate Legal Distortion Law cases. While investigation targets differ slightly by agency, this ambiguity could lead to duplicate investigations." He added, "The CIO has the legal authority to request case transfers from other agencies. Therefore, some worry that a ping-pong phenomenon between agencies over single cases could continue, or that some cases could end up being buried—with only side effects proliferating."

According to Article 24 of the CIO Act, when the CIO chief determines that it is appropriate for the CIO to investigate based on investigation progress and fairness controversies regarding other investigative agencies' criminal investigations that overlap with CIO investigations, and requests a transfer, the relevant investigative agency must comply. Additionally, when other investigative agencies discover high-ranking official crimes during their investigations, they must immediately notify the CIO.