"If an investigation is ongoing, prosecution should not have been pursued."

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] "Because the investigation of accomplices is still ongoing, it is difficult to access and copy the case records. We plan to allow access and copying once the investigation is concluded, which is expected to take approximately 2 to 3 months until the indictment."

This summarizes the position expressed by the prosecution during the two preparatory hearings for the trial of the Ulsan mayoral election interference allegations, following the indictment of 13 ruling party figures on January 29. It essentially means, "The investigation is incomplete, so we cannot proceed with the trial yet; please wait until everything is finished." Defense attorneys lament that they cannot properly prepare for the trial due to such prosecution actions. "If the related cases are still under investigation, they should not have been indicted, but the indictment has caused obstacles to exercising the right to defense."

There are criticisms that the prosecution is repeating indictment practices that violate the fundamental principles of the Criminal Procedure Act. Investigations are supposed to be possible only before indictment, and once indicted, the principle of equality between the prosecutor and the defendant should be upheld. The prosecution’s indictment practices were also criticized in the case of Professor Jeong Gyeong-shim of Dongyang University, indicted last year on charges including forgery of certificates. At that time, after initially indicting Professor Jeong in September last year, the prosecution submitted evidence related to the certificate forgery obtained through forced investigations such as search and seizure to the court. During the preparatory hearings, the prosecution repeatedly stated that "disclosure of investigation records cannot be allowed as it could cause serious obstacles to ongoing related investigations."

Legal circles point out that this indictment practice significantly infringes on the defendant’s right to defense. This is especially true in so-called "truck indictments," where investigation records exceed 30,000 pages, such as in the Ulsan mayoral election interference case. A lawyer in Seocho-dong said, "Investigative agencies like the prosecution can produce records that individuals cannot create within a short period, but the defendant’s side struggles to review the records within the set timeframe. If the prosecution restricts copying of records after indictment and produces additional records through further investigations, the right to defense is inevitably constrained."

There are also criticisms that this goes against the court’s principle of trial-centered proceedings. Trial-centered proceedings require that trials be based on statements made in open court. The restriction on access and copying of case records by the prosecution during the preparatory hearings for the Ulsan mayoral election interference case and Professor Jeong’s case is part of a system introduced to strengthen trial-centered proceedings, also known as the "disclosure of evidence system." Another lawyer said, "After indictment, all criminal procedures should be conducted in court according to trial-centered proceedings, but the prosecution is overturning this process by using the excuse of accomplice investigations."

However, from the perspective of investigative agencies such as the prosecution, if additional investigations are necessary to uncover substantive truth even after indictment, they have no choice but to proceed. A recent example is the prosecution’s continued investigation to apply charges of organizing a criminal group after indicting major suspects like Jo Joo-bin in the Telegram 'Doctor’s Room' case.

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