President Lee Jae-myung on the 5th instructed officials to review in advance how to handle the operation of joint prosecution-police investigation units following the revision of the Criminal Procedure Act. "Check in advance how this will be handled and report back," he said.
At a briefing by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and the Ministry of Government Legislation held at the Blue House that day, Lee said, "I haven't read the revised Criminal Procedure Act," and asked whether prosecutors would be completely excluded from investigations in joint investigation units. When Justice Minister Chung Sung-ho replied, "The legal basis for any and all investigations has been eliminated," Lee asked again, "Isn't there a difference between the basis disappearing and being explicitly prohibited from doing it?"
Lee then asked Interior Minister Yoon Ho-jung, "So it's not that we have to dismantle the prosecution-police joint investigation units that have been operating until now?" Yoon replied, "It can be done," adding, "However, in the case of prosecutors conducting cooperative investigations, the prosecutors do not carry out the investigations directly."
Chung pointed out that "in the case of joint investigation units, the basis for their operation is very weak," and "is in fact nonexistent." As an alternative, Yoon said, "I think a 'Prosecution-CIO-Police joint investigation unit' — comprising the Public Prosecution Office, the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, and the police — will likely be created."
Lee stressed, "When you overhaul an entire system that has been in place for decades, not every problem will be cleanly resolved and it won't automatically become a new system," adding, "We must devise measures to the fullest extent for all problems that could arise."
