Controversial Clauses Removed, Personnel and Organizational Reshuffle... Will the Public Corruption Investigation Office Change After the Lunar New Year Holiday?

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[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The High-ranking Officials' Crime Investigation Agency (HCIA) is currently undergoing a reform process, revising its human and material resources and reestablishing various regulations. Attention is focused on whether the HCIA, which has been struggling with doubts and controversies over its investigations from outside, will show a changed appearance after the Lunar New Year holiday.

According to the legal community on the 30th, the HCIA is reportedly preparing for an organizational restructuring by collecting personnel preferences from prosecutors and investigators in each department.

An internal personnel reshuffle is expected as early as March. Considering that the terms of HCIA prosecutors will reach one year in April without a single prosecution and that the investigation results over the past year have been poor, the personnel changes might be delayed a bit further.

The timing is crucial, but on the 26th, the HCIA announced a legislative notice for the revision of the case handling regulations, which created a need to reassign members. This is because the organizational structure is changing, and variables such as the promotion possibilities of some prosecutors and the deployment of dispatched personnel are unavoidable.

Currently, the HCIA employs 19 rank-and-file prosecutors excluding the Chief, Deputy Chief, and two Head Prosecutors, and 35 investigators excluding one prosecutor dispatched from the prosecution who is scheduled to return. Prosecutors are assigned to the Investigation Department, Prosecution Department, Investigation Planning Office, and Case Investigation Analysis Office, while investigators belong to various departments and the Deputy Chief’s direct Investigation Division.

Among these, the Case Investigation Analysis Office is set to be abolished. The HCIA decided to eliminate the 'case investigation analysis' phase while revising the case handling regulations. Previously, the HCIA Chief selected and registered cases for investigation, but this process will be removed. This decision appears to have been made amid ongoing controversies regarding political neutrality and independence in investigations.

Accordingly, prosecutors Yesang-gyun and Kwon Do-hyung, who worked in the Case Investigation Analysis Office, will be reassigned to the Investigation Department or other units. Additionally, the revision includes a new stage for deciding cases subject to separation of investigation and prosecution, which may also affect the size of the Prosecution Department.

Once a Human Rights Inspector is hired, Prosecutor Cha Jeong-hyun, who has been acting in that role, is also expected to be fully deployed in investigations, making this another factor in personnel changes. This month, 31 police-dispatched investigators returned, and five new investigators, about one-sixth of that number, are scheduled to be dispatched, making reassignment of investigators inevitable.

Earlier, on the 26th, the HCIA decided to delete the 'conditional transfer' (transfer with reserved prosecution rights), which had triggered conflicts with the prosecution, as well as the police’s authority to request arrest and detention warrants. By revising the most controversial parts, the HCIA signaled the start of its reform efforts.

The 'Investigation-Prosecution Separation Case Decision System' will also be introduced. For general cases, the investigating prosecutor will decide whether to prosecute under the Chief’s command and supervision, but for cases designated by the Chief as 'investigation-prosecution separation cases' considering their gravity, prosecutors in the Prosecution Department will be involved in the final decision.

Before the Lunar New Year holiday, the HCIA also transferred many cases to the prosecution. Earlier this month, the case involving Prosecutor Lee Gyu-won’s alleged fabrication and leak of a false interview report on Yoon Jung-chun was simply transferred to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office. This is seen as an effort to reduce the number of cases, eliminate excess in investigations, and focus on selected cases to achieve investigative results.

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