Prosecution Reform Law Strips Prosecutors of Warrant Powers, Raising Oversight Concerns

Starting October, the prosecution will transform into a Public Prosecution Office handling only indictment and case maintenance functions under the newly passed prosecution reform law. Prosecutors will lose not only investigative powers but also authority to request warrants and direct their execution. Legal experts warn that checks against abuse of investigative power or shoddy investigations by primary investigative agencies have effectively disappeared.

The Public Prosecution Office establishment bill, which passed the National Assembly plenary session on the 20th, excludes from prosecutors' authority not only investigative functions but also supervisory powers over special judicial police officers and warrant request and execution directive powers.

With the constitutional and criminal procedure law-mandated warrant powers stripped away, prosecutors can no longer intervene in police warrant application processes. Previously, prosecutors controlled investigations by providing supplementary opinions on police warrant requests. Going forward, they must decide whether to request warrants from courts based solely on records submitted by police. The final bill also removed prosecutors' investigation suspension rights and personnel removal request rights that were included in earlier drafts, further weakening prosecutorial judicial oversight.

As the scope of reduced prosecutorial authority is finalized, significant confusion across the criminal justice system appears inevitable. Acting Prosecutor General Ku Ja-hyun (Deputy Prosecutor General at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office) stated in an email to prosecution staff yesterday: "The Supreme Prosecutors' Office has made multifaceted efforts to establish the constitutional status and role of the Prosecutor General and prosecutors, and to design an organizational structure where citizens can feel its utility and prosecutors can fulfill their original roles." He added: "As Acting Prosecutor General, I am sorry that these efforts were not substantially reflected in this Public Prosecution Office Act."

Critics point out that preventing improper investigations or case cover-ups has become more difficult. The authority to demand investigation suspension for improper police investigations was removed, as was the mandatory provision requiring Serious Crimes Investigation Agency investigators to notify prosecutors when initiating investigations.

Concerns are also raised that blocking prosecutors' legal judgment from the investigation stage could create problems for both investigations and case maintenance. For complex financial crimes or technology theft cases, inadequate police investigations could make indictment itself difficult. Even if indictment proceeds, achieving actual punishment becomes harder. Similar problems may arise for sex crimes or crimes against disabled persons, which heavily depend on victim testimony.

A senior prosecutor said: "Financial crimes and technology theft cases require highly specialized investigative personnel, which cannot be developed in a short period." He added: "Prosecutors receiving inadequate investigation results will often have no choice but to reluctantly issue non-prosecution decisions."

Legal circles view the importance of supplementary investigation rights—the only remaining check—as having grown significantly now that prosecutors' investigative directive authority has been effectively eliminated entirely. Whether to allow exceptional supplementary investigation rights to Public Prosecution Office prosecutors is expected to be decided in criminal procedure law revision discussions following the June local elections.