Heated Debate on Prosecutors' Internal Network Ahead of Prosecutor-General Meeting Led by Choo Mi-ae: "Investigation and Prosecution Are Incomprehensible" (Comprehensive)

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] As the nationwide prosecutors' chiefs meeting chaired by Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae is scheduled for the 21st, the internal debate within the prosecution over the plan to separate investigation and prosecution is intensifying.

According to the legal community on the 19th, on the prosecution's internal network 'Eprose,' posts supporting and opposing the plan proposed by Minister Choo to separate the investigation and prosecution entities within the prosecution, as well as requests to disclose the prosecutors' chiefs meeting, have been posted consecutively. On the 21st, the Ministry of Justice will gather with nationwide prosecutors' chiefs at the Government Complex Gwacheon to exchange opinions on the separation of investigation and prosecution, adjustment of investigative authority between police and prosecution, and the enactment of subordinate laws related to the High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Office bill.

Among them, Gu Ja-won (33, Judicial Research and Training Institute class 44), a prosecutor at the Yeoju branch of Suwon District Prosecutors' Office, posted the day before, "I ask that even prosecutors like me working on the front lines be allowed to know the contents of the meeting."

Prosecutor Gu said, "When I saw the article about separating investigation and prosecution, my first thought was 'What does that mean?'" and added, "It does not mean that it is nonsense. It is because I do not know in what direction or what the meaning of separating investigation and prosecution is."

He continued, "Since the investigative authority adjustment bill has already passed, granting a significant portion of investigative authority to the police without prosecutors' supervision," and said, "Given that such a major direction has been decided, I could not immediately grasp how the prosecutors' investigative and prosecutorial powers would be separated again."

He also added, "Is it about separating within the scope where prosecutors can investigate under the amended Criminal Procedure Act, or does it mean that the prosecutor who prepares the suspect interrogation record and the prosecutor who drafts the indictment must be different? These thoughts kept piling up."

He then requested, "I ask that even prosecutors like me working on the front lines be allowed to know the contents of the meeting," and "Please also provide the minutes or other records so that we can know what plan the minister proposed and what the seniors said."

Kim Tae-hoon (49, class 30), head of the prosecution division at the Ministry of Justice, commented on Prosecutor Gu's post, saying, "As the person in charge of the relevant department, I will be preparing the minutes, but as far as I know, there has been no precedent of disclosing the full text," and added, "I will try to convey the discussion mainly focusing on the key points."

Kim also replied to a post by Lee Soo-young (31, class 44), a prosecutor at the Sangju branch of Daegu District Prosecutors' Office, who wrote, "I don't know if prosecution without investigation or investigation without considering prosecution is possible." He explained the reasons why the Ministry of Justice is promoting the separation of investigation and prosecution in six comments, based on the history of the prosecution system and reflections on direct investigations.

Kim said, "The investigative authority granted to prosecutors is recognized as an inherent power for judicial control over judicial police investigations, which prosecutors supervise and direct," and added, "I understand that the form where prosecutors initiate investigations directly and interrogate suspects themselves to collect evidence is not a common practice in other advanced countries."

Regarding the prosecution's direct investigations, he pointed out, "While presiding over, directing, and supervising investigations as the public prosecutor, prosecutors also become direct actors in investigative activities, so the same person conducts both the investigation and judicial control over the investigation," and said, "This places them in a position quite different from the inherent role of the public prosecutor who supervises and directs judicial police investigations."

Kim further added, "There has long been internal and external reflection on whether the role of the public prosecutor, introduced as an accusatorial procedure in modern criminal law to replace inquisitorial principles, has been properly exercised, given that in direct investigation cases, the subject of investigation, its supervision and control, and the public prosecutor are the same person."

Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol is attending the nationwide district prosecutors' chiefs and election affairs deputy chiefs meeting held at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in Seocho-gu, Seoul on the 10th. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

In the post where Kim commented, Prosecutor Lee said, "The prosecutors I know are public prosecutors," and added, "As public prosecutors, they inevitably get involved from the initiation stage of investigations as well as in filing and maintaining indictments," and said, "I conducted investigations with great care to minimize infringement on the human rights of those involved in the case based on the possibility of prosecution. If investigation and prosecution are separated and there is a prosecutor only in charge of investigation, such judgment criteria would disappear, and I do not know what standards to use for investigations in the future."

On the 17th, Cha Ho-dong (41, class 38), a prosecutor at Daegu District Prosecutors' Office, rebutted Minister Choo's claim that Japan's prosecution's low acquittal rate is a model case of internal control.

Prosecutor Cha said, "The general assessment in academia and elsewhere is that Japan's so-called 'precision (精密) justice' is due to its passive prosecution practice," and added, "Japan actually has quasi-prosecution procedures (court review of prosecution for abuse of official authority, similar to our request for review) and prosecution review councils (organizations that retrospectively review the validity of prosecutors' non-prosecution decisions) to control such passive prosecution practices."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.