[The Editors' Verdict] The Current State of Prosecutorial Reform

Seokjin Choi, Head of Legal Affairs Team (Manager)

Since the beginning of this year, several prosecutorial reform measures promoted by the Moon Jae-in administration have been fully implemented, bringing significant changes to the national criminal justice system. With the adjustment of investigative authority between the prosecution and the police, the prosecution's direct investigative powers have been drastically reduced, and its supervisory authority over the police has disappeared. Meanwhile, the police have gained extensive investigative powers along with the authority to conclude primary investigations. The High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Agency (Gong-su-cheo), launched in January, recently began investigating its 'first case.'

Although prosecutorial reform seems to have reached its final stages in terms of outward appearance, it is difficult to readily answer the question of whether things have truly improved. The slowdown in the police's case processing speed due to the influx of complaints and accusations, and the significant decrease in the prosecution's number of indictments, can be seen as inevitable transitional phenomena during the early stages of institutional establishment. However, it is a bittersweet reality that voices from the ruling party, which had previously advocated for 'Geomsu-wanbak' (complete removal of prosecutorial investigative authority), are now calling for the prosecution's active participation in the investigation of the 'LH case,' where a large-scale government joint special investigation headquarters was formed centered on the National Police Agency's Criminal Investigation Headquarters.

The High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Agency, which avoided appointing former prosecutors and instead appointed judges with little to no investigative experience as its chief and deputy chief, has failed to fill its quota of investigative prosecutors and investigators even after more than 100 days since its launch. Among the 13 investigative prosecutors selected, only four have prior investigative experience as prosecutors. It is questionable whether a one- or two-month intensive training at the Judicial Research and Training Institute can quickly equip them with the capability to handle complex cases. A more serious problem is that before even starting its first investigation, the agency suffered a fatal blow to its political neutrality due to the controversy over the 'imperial escort' of Lee Seong-yoon, the chief prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office. It is nothing short of a comedy that Lee, who leads the largest prosecution office in the country, loudly expressed a desire to be investigated by Gong-su-cheo instead of the prosecution. Lee, who had claimed the prosecution was conducting 'targeted investigations,' was judged by ordinary citizens to be someone who should be indicted immediately and eventually ended up being prosecuted.

The situation inside the prosecution is even more serious. Most of the 'Yoon Seok-youl line' from the special investigation division have been pushed to minor posts, but new lines such as the 'Choo Mi-ae line' and the 'Lee Seong-yoon line' have emerged and occupied key positions, causing politically sensitive important investigations to be stalled for months. As the Ministry of Justice increased the number of criminal and trial divisions within the prosecution and drastically reduced the number of departments conducting cognizance investigations, even abolishing the Joint Securities Crime Investigation Division, swift and efficient investigations into financial crimes are not being conducted despite their rampant occurrence.

No matter how much the government aims to support its policies, manipulating economic evaluations is unacceptable, and destroying documents to avoid audits by the Board of Audit and Inspection deserves punishment. Yet, when the prosecution investigated the 'Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant' case, the ruling party leader and the Minister of Justice spoke of 'abuse of prosecutorial power,' 'biased investigations,' and 'prosecutorial rampage.' Former Minister Choo Mi-ae promoted Park Soon-cheol, who resigned after pointing out the unfairness of the ministerial investigation directive, to head the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office and assigned him the 'Lime' case. Park's remark that "politics has covered up the prosecution" encapsulates the current reality of the prosecution.

The essence of prosecutorial reform is to create an investigative environment where the prosecution's political neutrality and independence can be preserved. It is not a matter of simply transferring investigative authority from the prosecution to the police or creating a new investigative agency like Gong-su-cheo; it requires the decisive will of those in power. No matter how much the system changes, prosecutorial reform will be futile as long as those in power refuse to relinquish their desire to control the prosecution. Expecting fair investigations from prosecutors in an environment where those who investigate the administration are demoted and those who show pro-government tendencies are promoted to key positions is wishful thinking.

In 2019, then Prosecutor General Moon Moo-il, when asked about the prosecution's political neutrality at a press conference, suddenly took off his suit jacket and shook it, asking, "What is shaking? The clothes are shaking. Who is shaking them?" The problem is not the shaking suit but the hand shaking it.

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