Koo Ja-hyun, acting prosecutor-general, has offered to resign after a revision to the Criminal Procedure Act, which fully abolishes prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority, passed a plenary session of the National Assembly.
"I feel a keen sense of responsibility over the Criminal Procedure Act revision, and I have just submitted my resignation," Koo said during a doorstepping session held at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the 31st. Koo's resignation comes 258 days after he took office on November 15 last year.
"I have continuously agonized over the direction of institutional reform to guarantee the rights of the people and to protect society from crime," Koo said. "I have consistently conveyed concerns that this revision to the Criminal Procedure Act would leave prosecutors with no choice but to decide on indictments based solely on investigation records, would make it difficult to ensure victim protection, and would create an inefficient structure requiring significant time and cost."
"However, these points were not accepted, and the revision passed," he added. "It is difficult to hide my heartbroken and helpless feelings."
"Even after the Criminal Procedure Act revision that passed the National Assembly plenary session is transferred to the government, I earnestly ask that it be reviewed once more to check whether there are any institutional gaps when this law takes effect and whether it falls short in protecting the people," he stressed. "I sincerely hope that going forward, the judicial system will develop in a direction where all citizens can be fairly protected before the law."
Koo's offer to resign came as a protest against the Criminal Procedure Act revision, centered on the full abolition of the prosecution's supplementary investigation authority, which passed the National Assembly that day. In a statement the previous day, ahead of the bill being tabled, Koo also said, "As has been confirmed in numerous recent cases, if prosecutors' effective functions of checking, supplementing, and correcting disappear, the truth will be concealed and the Republic of Korea's criminal justice system will collapse."
If Koo's resignation is accepted, the duties of prosecutor-general will be assumed by Park Kyu-hyung, head of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's Planning and Coordination Bureau. In effect, the prosecutor-general's post would be run under an "acting for the acting" system.
