The article was originally published by New Daily and translated by OKN Correspondent.
The Democratic Party of Korea(DP) unilaterally passed a bill that would completely strip away the South Korean prosecution’s investigative powers through a parliamentary committee on early Wednesday morning. The prosecution pointed out that the bill is aimed at following the “Chinese public security system,” but politicians and the media are not listening.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office’s District Attorney Lee Jung-soo and 1st to 4th deputy district attorneys held a press conference on April 26 where they pointed out the problems with the settled proposal regarding the prosecution reform bill agreed by the ruling and opposition parties. They appealed to them to block the enactment of the bill.
Among them, Kim Tae-hoon, the 4th deputy district attorney, drew attention with his explanation. Kim pointed out, “If the investigative powers are removed [from the prosecution] as outlined in the settled proposal, it will be difficult to check the police.” He added that “it is similar to the system that China and other past communist states aimed to pursue.”
“In most countries that have a civil law system such as Germany, France, and Austria, the prosecution directs police investigations and has standardized supervisory authority,” Kim said.
In the prosecution’s internal network called “E-Pros,” comments have been made that the reform bill to completely abolish the prosecution’s investigative powers is similar to the law on China’s public security.
On April 21, Lee Jae-yeon, a prosecutor at the Western District Office of the Daegu District Prosecutors’ Office, wrote a piece titled, “Global Standard Chinese Criminal Procedure Act and Reform Bill,” pointing out the similarity between the controversial Korean reform bill and Chinese law.
“There was a familiar part while looking at the recently proposed revisions to the Criminal Procedure Act and the Prosecutors’ Office Act,” Lee said. He then pointed out Article 19 of China’s Criminal Procedure Law, which states that except for certain cases stipulated by the law, the public security office (under the Ministry of Public Security) is in charge of criminal investigations.
Lee argued that it is similar to the ruling party’s prosecution reform bill, which deprived the prosecution of the right to investigate and limited the scope of the prosecution’s investigations to crimes committed by the police and other civil servants. “Did they refer to this [the Chinese law] as a global standard?” Lee asked. “In fact, even China states that there are cases that need the prosecution’s investigation. Which country’s law states that the prosecution can only have the authority to indict but no authority to investigate?”
On April 13, Shin Heon-seop, a prosecutor at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office inquired on E-Pros, “Where is the ‘advanced country’ stated in the ‘advanced prosecution system’ that the DP says?”
Shin, who pointed out that the bill itself is unconstitutional, said, “I ran into a fundamental question of what the advanced prosecution system is to deprive the prosecution of the right to investigate and give the police uncontrolled power.” He then explained the cases of each country.
Shin explained that in the United States, not only federal prosecutors but also local prosecutors have the right to investigate and control judicial police, and there is no other advanced country where the prosecution does not have the right to investigate.
“Then the only country left is China, a so-called ‘economically advanced country.’ I thought that this socialist country’s criminal law system could not have been referenced by a liberal democracy,” Shin said. Shin argued that the current reform bill reminds him of the Chinese prosecution, which only has the nominal power to indict but has no control over the Chinese public security office’s investigations which only the Communist Party can control.
Others in political circles are raising similar points. Kim Woong, a former prosecutor and current lawmaker from the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), wrote on his Facebook on April 16 that the Chinese public security system is the model for the DP’s bill to completely abolish the prosecution’s investigative powers.
“Looking at the DP’s reform bill, some say that it is a strange law that does not exist in the world, but this is different from the truth,” Kim said. “The DP’s bill has a clear model. It is [based on] China’s public security system.”
According to Kim, China’s prosecution does what the public security office tells it to do. If the public security office asks for a warrant, the prosecution will issue a warrant. If the public security office asks for an indictment, the prosecution will indict, Kim said. If China’s prosecution fails to indict someone after the public security office transferred the case for an indictment, the prosecution has to send a report to the public security office explaining the reason. Kim argued that this shows that the public security office is technically above the prosecution in China.
“The bill means asking for warrants on police orders and prosecuting on police orders, which is the relationship between the Chinese public security office and the Chinese prosecution,” Kim said. “The bill to completely abolish the prosecution’s investigative powers is completely the same.”
“During Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, China attacked and got rid of the prosecution by saying that they were influenced by capitalism when prosecutors called for criminal justice and protection of human rights while the government was trying to purge Mao’s opposition,” Kim argued. “The Chinese Communist Party later created the people’s prosecutors’ office [Supreme People’s Procuratorate] by arguing that it should be the people that prosecute people directly.”
Kim also introduced the police’s argument that he heard at a debate on the adjustment of investigative powers between the prosecution and police in the past. “When I said at the 2019 investigative rights settlement debate that ‘the adjustment bill is plagiarism of China’s public security law,’ the police proudly insisted that ‘China’s criminal procedure law is more advanced than our law.’”
“However, Hong Kong citizens risked their lives to protest for democracy because they opposed being subject to China’s criminal justice system,” he said. “But we are now trying to adopt the Chinese public security system ourselves.”
Kim then argued that the separation of investigative and prosecution rights, which the Moon Jae-in administration and the DP have promoted over the past five years, follows the Chinese public security system.
“The systems brought in during the adjustment of the country’s first investigation rights, requests for supplementary investigation, the right to terminate investigations, and the deprivation of investigative command are all copied from the Chinese public security system,” Kim said. “Furthermore, the article related to the supplementary investigation request copied the provisions of the Chinese law apart for one letter. The Chinese Communist Party protected its one-party dictatorship with its public security system.”
Kim is not the only one making this claim. The JoongAng Ilbo newspaper published an article on the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), on June 10, 2019. At that time, the newspaper cited comments made by Yoon Woong-gul, head of the Jeonju District Prosecutor’s Office.
“It is wrong to choose a way to undermine the prosecution’s essential function by copying the Chinese system, which has taken a different path from the Western advanced system,” Yoon wrote on the “E-Pros” forum at that time.
“China’s National Audit Office is similar to Korea’s CIO that is being pushed,” Yoon said. “The media assesses that the Chinese National Audit Office is contributing to the consolidation of power and long-term rule of its leader by efficiently eliminating political opponents in the name of corruption.”
Yoon added that the “reform of the judicial system should be carried out by comparing it with other countries’ judicial systems, but I am very concerned that South Korea is currently leaning toward political logic.” He argued that “not looking at advanced foreign systems is like covering your eyes and ears.”
