The South Korean government and the ruling Democratic Party reaffirmed the principle of not granting supplementary investigation authority to prosecutors at the Public Prosecution Service, following the abolition of the Prosecutors' Office scheduled for October.
The Prosecution Reform Task Force under the Prime Minister's Office and the Democratic Party jointly held a "Ruling Party-Government Debate on Improving the Criminal Justice System for the People" at the Korea Press Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, on Thursday morning. The debate was the last one before the revision of the Criminal Procedure Act, which will define the role of prosecutors at the Public Prosecution Service.
"With the passage of the Public Prosecution Service Act and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act, the framework has been finalized for investigative agencies to focus on investigations and prosecution agencies to focus on indictments," said Yoon Chang-ryeol, head of the Prosecution Reform Task Force and Minister of the Office for Government Policy Coordination. "The government is organizing follow-up procedures under the principle of prosecutors requesting supplementary investigations."
Han Jeong-ae, chair of the Democratic Party's Policy Committee, said, "While maintaining the principle of separating investigation and prosecution, it is important to devise measures to strengthen victim protection and crime response capabilities. We will strive to produce the best results from the public's perspective."
Prime Minister Kim Min-seok is reported to have earlier instructed the task force to "discuss the matter with the abolition of prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority as the basic direction."
Yoo Seung-ik, a professor at Myongji University who gave the sole keynote presentation, said, "The incidental and discretionary activities performed by prosecutors must be clearly redefined as pre-indictment fact-finding and prosecution review rather than investigation." He added, "Rather than banning activities such as searching court rulings and reviewing specialized literature by classifying them as investigation, it is necessary to redefine them by law as administrative functions incidental to the exercise of prosecutorial authority." He concluded, "In short, prosecutors must step back from investigations."
Yoo also said, "Establishing an emergency supplementary investigation request system or building a real-time cooperation platform could be effective measures to prevent delays in judicial procedures without undermining the principle of separating investigation and prosecution."
There were also voices calling for ensuring the effectiveness of supplementary investigation requests. Choi Ho-jin, a law professor at Dankook University, said, "The effectiveness of prosecutors' authority to request disciplinary action against police investigators must be guaranteed, and when supplementary investigation requests are repeatedly made, prosecutors should be granted supplementary investigation authority."
