This article was originally published on BBC News Korea and translated by OKN Correspondent.
The Democratic Party (DP) showed strong will to push ahead with passing a bill that would completely strip away the prosecution’s investigative powers. It is expected that this will be met with strong backlash from the prosecution.
The DP announced that the party has decided to pass its so-called prosecution reform bill by end of April, or before the National Assembly’s temporary session ends. It will leave the prosecution only with the power to indict while taking away its investigative powers.
The DP, which has 172 seats out of the 300 total seats in the National Assembly, has the power to pass the bill unilaterally. There is a high chance that the People Power Party will use the filibuster to prevent the bill from getting passed.
The key to the bill is completely abolishing the prosecution’s investigative powers and leaving the prosecution only with the power to indict.
Investigative powers refer to the authority to investigate criminal cases and the power to indict means the authority to have the court rule on a certain case when a violation of criminal law is found.
The police have the power to investigate but the prosecution was able to conduct or issue orders in all cases before they settled on how to investigate cases. Due to this, there were criticisms that the prosecution, which had all power to investigate, indict and request a warrant, had too much power.
However, the prosecution and police settled on this issue as a first reform measure last year. The prosecution’s power to order the police to conduct investigations was abolished and it was forced to give up investigative rights for all but six major crimes, including those related to corruption, the economy, public officials, elections, the defense industry, and large-scale disasters.
The police acquired the power to open and close cases on most of the crimes that are directly related to people’s lives, including theft, assault, murder, and fraud case, without approval from the prosecution. Also, the police gained the ability to reject the prosecution’s request that the police conduct supplementary investigations on cases that the police already closed.
If the new bill is passed, the prosecution will lose its powers to investigate six major crimes on top of the first reform that occurred last year. However, the prosecution will at least be able to investigate the police for check and balances purposes.
It is not yet decided whether to transfer the power to investigate six major crimes to a third party such as the police.
In South Korea, steady criticism has maintained that the prosecution exercises excessive power. In particular, there are suspicions of “tolerant investigations” of people with prosecution backgrounds, including former Vice Justice Minister Kim Hak-ui, whose case over allegations of receiving sexual bribery was dismissed twice.
Yun Ho-jung, floor leader of the DP, held an emergency meeting and said that “normalization of the prosecution is the starting point of the advancement of power agencies.” He added that “we will separate investigation and indictment rights first and prepare measures to check the police investigation rights as soon as possible.”
However, some point out that this could lead to excessive police authority and workload. In particular, criticism is raised that a major investigation gap could occur if they hurry because the six major crimes require investigation expertise.
Lawyers for Human Rights and Unification of Korea released a statement on April 11, saying, “[the prosecution reform bill] will completely undermine the independence and neutrality of investigative agencies, aid corruption in political power and reduce the quality of criminal investigations.” They added that “it will cause confusion in a criminal justice system that has been in operation for a long time, causing enormous costs and inconvenience to the country and the people.”
President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s term will begin on May 10 and the National Assembly will not be able to finalize the bill if Yoon decides to exercise his veto power.
Yoon, who was prosecutor general, announced his own judicial reform pledge in February. He came up with prosecution-friendly policies such as abolishing the justice minister’s right to command investigations and granting the authority to manage the budget for the prosecution to the prosecutor general.
Lawyers for a Democratic Society or Minbyun [a civic group] released a statement on April 12 and said that it is in favor of the direction of the bill but expressed its opinion that the speed of passing the bill should be controlled. It is saying that they should check the investigation capabilities, secure measures to check the police, and listen to the opinions of those involved in this issue.
“We cannot deny that the recent controversy over the bill is a strong reflection of concerns over the Yoon Suk-yeol government’s direction that is going backward,” Minbyun said. “Yoon should withdraw his pledge to revive the ‘Republic of the Prosecution’ and clearly express his intent to respect the prosecution reform bill prepared by the National Assembly.”
To read the original article in Korean, please click here.
