Minister Choo Mi-ae Orders "Ministry of Justice to Review Direct Allocation Plan for Prosecutors' Special Activity Funds"

Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae. [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin] It was reported on the 9th that Minister of Justice Chu Mi-ae instructed the Ministry of Justice to review a plan to directly receive the prosecution's special activity funds, which have recently become controversial, and then allocate them to frontline prosecution offices.

On the same day, the Ministry of Justice reported to the members of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, who conducted an on-site inspection of the special activity fund expenditures of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office and the Ministry of Justice, that "we are reviewing a plan for the Ministry of Justice to receive the prosecution's special activity funds and directly allocate them to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office or frontline offices."

A Ministry of Justice official said, "Currently, the Ministry of Justice directly distributes the general budget of frontline district prosecutors' offices," adding, "If issues continue to be raised as they are now, we may consider distributing the special activity funds directly like the general budget."

He continued, "A significant portion of the special activity funds had been collectively delegated to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, but the intention is to review having the Ministry of Justice handle this in principle."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice stated on the same day, "Minister Chu reported that unlike previous years, she neither received nor used prosecution special activity funds, and it was confirmed during the subsequent document verification that there were no issues."

According to the special activity fund verification by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee that day, it was confirmed that the Ministry of Justice took about 10% of the prosecution's special activity funds of 9.4 billion won this year.

Regarding this, Kim Do-eup, a member of the People Power Party, raised concerns, saying, "The Ministry of Justice's Prosecution Bureau, which does not conduct investigations or intelligence gathering, spent 759 million won of special activity funds this year," and added, "The use of these special activity funds by the Prosecution Bureau should be explained in detail."

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