A sixth-year prosecutor at a regional prosecutors' office recently collapsed from a stroke caused by overwork and was rushed to the hospital. The prosecutor's condition was serious enough to require transfer to an intensive care unit, and the individual has been unable to return to work more than a week after being hospitalized.
At another prosecutors' office in the Seoul metropolitan area, a rank-and-file prosecutor who felt physical abnormalities from overwork was admitted to an emergency room but had to check out after just two days to deal with a backlog of pending work.
Warning signs are emerging within the prosecution service as the backlog of unsolved cases caused by a manpower shortage surpasses critical levels. The number of unsolved cases has surged due to a decline in investigative personnel, while resignations, leaves of absence, and dispatches to special counsel teams have further reduced the working headcount, pushing operations to the brink of paralysis.
According to legal circles on Wednesday, the number of prosecutors who have resigned this year plus those dispatched to five special counsel teams totals at least 115. That exceeds the entire current headcount of 106 at the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office, the second-largest in the country. The manpower gap is expected to widen further, as resignation procedures for prosecutors who recently declared their intent to leave have not yet been completed.
At the Cheonan branch of the Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office, two rank-and-file prosecutors recently resigned and one applied for a leave of absence. Given that the branch has a total of 17 prosecutors and roughly 10 rank-and-file prosecutors, approximately 18% of the entire staff have stepped away from duties — or 30% when counting only rank-and-file prosecutors. The Cheonan branch's authorized headcount is 35, meaning fewer than half that number are handling the workload. The Anyang branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office also has an authorized headcount of 34, but its actual working staff is reportedly around half that level.
The manpower vacuum has nearly paralyzed prosecutorial operations. At some prosecutors' offices in the Seoul metropolitan area, the number of unsolved cases per prosecutor in criminal divisions has exceeded 500. This is already a physically unmanageable level. Even when just two or three prosecutors leave, roughly 1,500 cases must be redistributed among the remaining staff. Given the nature of prosecutorial work — which requires conducting investigations on set schedules including search-and-seizure operations, suspect interrogations, and arrest warrant requests — reassigning cases forces a complete overhaul of existing schedules. Case backlogs and prolonged processing times are inevitable.
Morale among junior prosecutors has already hit rock bottom. Prosecutor Ahn Mi-hyun (41st class of the Judicial Research and Training Institute), who works at the Cheonan branch, wrote on Facebook on May 25, "Two out of eight investigative prosecutors recently declared their resignations." She added, "Yesterday I heard that a prosecutor at a regional office collapsed and was taken to the ICU, and today a junior prosecutor at our office who used to work overtime like it was nothing went to the emergency room."
Prosecutor Ryu Mi-rae (10th bar exam class) at the Busan District Prosecutors' Office, in her fifth year of service, posted a resignation message on the prosecution's internal network on May 26. "In a situation where political logic is shaking the foundations of the judicial system, I concluded that I can no longer carry out my duties in the way I aspire to," she wrote. "I cannot help but ask who will take responsibility for this vacuum in the justice system."
To address the manpower shortage, the prosecution recently dispatched 12 rank-and-file prosecutors with three to five years of experience to offices including the Suwon and Cheongju District Prosecutors' Offices in an acting-duty capacity. The Ministry of Justice also moved up the appointment of experienced prosecutors, usually conducted in August each year, to next month. However, voices within the organization say these measures are far from sufficient to resolve the backlog of unsolved cases.
One chief prosecutor said, "The situation is so dire that I feel sorry even asking junior prosecutors to speed up case processing when I meet them." He added, "The problem lies in the judicial structure itself that allows unsolved cases to pile up, and I think it would take at least several years to resolve."