[The Editors' Verdict] Prosecutors Barred from Investigations

Seokjin Choi, Legal Affairs Reporter

“In the end, it is the people who suffer losses.”

This was a remark made by a former sitting judge who was excited about the introduction of the Law Clerk (court research assistant) system and changes in the judge appointment system. In the past, humanities students in high school took the judicial examination, and those who ranked at the top of the Judicial Research and Training Institute became judges. However, with the introduction of law schools and the promotion of the unified legal profession policy, the system changed so that one could only be appointed as a judge after working as a lawyer for a certain period, which was a source of lament.

It is true. After the number of judicial examination passers exceeded 1,000, except for some top scorers who were scouted early by large law firms and went directly to those firms based on combined scores of the judicial exam and the Judicial Research and Training Institute, it was customary for those ranked 1st to 100th to apply for judgeships and those up to 200th to apply for prosecutorships.

The judge’s point was that in the past, really smart, intelligent, and diligent people became judges, working overtime without hesitation and dedicating their 20s and 30s to the people’s trials. Now that era is over, and the resulting loss is entirely borne by the people. Honestly, hearing the judge’s words made me think he was caught up in an elite mindset, but upon reflection, it was not wrong.

Although being good at studying does not necessarily make one an excellent judge or prosecutor, isn’t it true that a smart and diligent person who studied hard while others played can be trusted more than someone who did not?

Recently, Park Beom-gye, Minister of Justice, reduced the criminal divisions in frontline prosecutors’ offices that investigate the “six major crimes” to only one terminal division through a prosecution system reorganization. As most prosecutors in other criminal divisions can no longer conduct investigations directly, Prosecutor General Kim Oh-soo is now trying to reorganize the organization under the slogan “People-centered Prosecution” by transferring many prosecutors from criminal divisions to non-investigative departments such as the trial divisions. Currently, one trial division prosecutor handles two trial panels, but by increasing the number of trial division prosecutors, the plan is for one prosecutor to handle only one trial panel, which ultimately means reducing the number of prosecutors conducting investigations.

While maintaining prosecutions is important, there is no urgent need to suddenly double the number of trial division prosecutors. Above all, no one can deny that for more important cases, it is more efficient for the prosecutor who conducted the investigation to appear directly in court and oversee the prosecution.

Both former Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae and Minister Park have transferred prosecutors who handled major investigations related to the administration far away during personnel reshuffles, making it difficult for them to directly maintain prosecutions, and now claiming to strengthen prosecution maintenance lacks credibility.

It is undeniable that the prosecution became a target for reform due to past mistakes of prioritizing the organization over the people by relying on the administration, but fundamentally, prosecutors are human rights protection agencies and top experts in investigations. Telling prosecutors who have conducted investigations for a few years to over ten years not to investigate but only maintain prosecutions is a waste of manpower.

The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) has only four prosecutors with investigation experience among its appointed investigators, who are currently learning investigation practices intensively at the Judicial Research and Training Institute. It raises doubts whether blocking hundreds of already trained prosecutors from investigating is truly the right direction for reform.

Above all, it is clear that the prosecution’s investigative power will weaken, and we must not forget that the people will have to bear the damage. If there were severe corruption and abuses in general hospitals prompting medical reform, the cause of the corruption should be found and improvement methods sought, not preventing specialists from performing surgeries and entrusting the scalpel to novices with no surgical experience. Who then will take responsibility for the patients?

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