Seven out of 10 members of Lawyers for a Democratic Society (MINBYUN), a progressive lawyers' group, opposed the full abolition of prosecutors' supplementary investigation rights, a survey found. Even within MINBYUN, which is favorable toward prosecutorial reform, opinions acknowledging the need to maintain supplementary investigation rights emerged as dominant.
MINBYUN announced Wednesday the results of an opinion survey on plans to revise the Criminal Procedure Act, conducted among 403 member lawyers. The survey was carried out online from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, ahead of the revision of the Criminal Procedure Act in October this year.
According to the results, 67.0% of respondents said prosecutors' supplementary investigation rights should be fully or partially retained. Partial retention was the most common at 45.9%, while full retention stood at 21.1%. By contrast, opinions favoring full abolition came to only 31.3%.
On the scope and requirements should supplementary investigation rights be partially retained, "allowing it within the scope of maintaining identity" accounted for the highest share at 62.5%. This was followed by "cases where the statutory deadline is imminent" at 43.6% and "limited to specific crimes" at 39.2%. The opinion that compulsory investigation should also be allowed if supplementary investigation rights are recognized came to 64.9%, more than the response that only voluntary investigation should be allowed (35.1%).
There were also considerable opinions raising the need to restore the full-case referral system, which was effectively abolished by the 2021 adjustment of investigative authority between prosecutors and police. Full-case referral is a system in which all cases handled by primary investigative agencies such as the police are referred to the prosecution.
Some 43.2% of respondents said the current system should be maintained. However, combining the introduction of partial full-case referral limited to serious violent crimes (23.8%) and full restoration (23.6%), 47.4% were tallied as favoring the revival of the full-case referral system in some form.
Kang Moon-dae, president of MINBYUN, explained that "despite intense discussion and debate over a considerable period regarding the Criminal Procedure Act revision bill, we were unable to derive a single position on some issues." He added, "The issues surrounding prosecutors' supplementary investigation rights and the full-case referral system must be discussed only from the perspective of realizing judicial justice," and said, "Political interests or controversy over past mistakes must not become the background or standard for the discussion."
As concerns over the abolition of supplementary investigation rights spread within MINBYUN and the wider legal community, recent distrust of police investigations is bolstering arguments for retaining the rights. In the Gwangju high school girl murder case, prosecutors additionally confirmed through supplementary investigation the circumstances in which Jang Yun-gi, 23, killed the victim after failing in an attempt to commit sexual assault.
Concerns continue that the abolition of supplementary investigation rights could lead to a gap in remedies for victims' rights. Kim Ho-jung, a prosecutor at the Women and Children Crime Investigation Division of the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors' Office, wrote on the prosecution's internal network e-Pros, "If supplementary investigation rights disappear, wronged suspects and victims will be produced en masse."
Meanwhile, the National Police Agency submitted to the government its opinion on specific criteria for the enforcement decree of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, including limiting cases subject to notification to serious crimes. This came from concerns that collectively notifying the agency of cases reaching 580,000 per year could increase delays in handling public livelihood cases and administrative burdens. The proposals included limiting property crimes under the Criminal Act to those subject to the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes (5 hundred million won or more), limiting bribery under the Criminal Act and violations of the Narcotics Control Act to those subject to the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes, and excluding voice phishing-related crimes from notification.
