The Main Police Control is the Police System Development Committee

Police Insider: "Policy to Exclude Judicial Authority and Create Administrative Police Staff"
Multiple Ranks System and Other 'Carrots' Expected

28 Police Superintendents Assigned Same Day
Reversal Happened Within Two Hours

[Asia Economy reporters Seongpil Cho and Gyumin Oh] The Police System Development Committee is emerging as a practical means of police control by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS). After the MOIS Police System Improvement Advisory Committee recommended the establishment of the Development Committee the day before, police insiders on the 22nd evaluated that "the advisory committee's recommendations are a preview of police control, and the Development Committee will be the main act."

The advisory committee specified eight topics to be discussed later by the Development Committee, including △the distinction between judicial and administrative police and the scope of intelligence police functions △improvement plans for the National Police Commission (such as transferring administrative departments to MOIS) △development plans for the autonomous police system, among others. Regarding the distinction between judicial and administrative police, the consensus is that the policy aims to go beyond the existing three-tier system by excluding judicial authority from the national police and turning them into ‘administrative police officers.’

Currently, the police are composed of three organizations: the National Police Agency (NPA), the Criminal Investigation Police (National Investigation Headquarters), and the Autonomous Police. All of these have judicial police authority to issue orders and enforce coercive power over the public. The plan is interpreted as bifurcating this authority into judicial police and administrative police, leaving room for the Minister of the Interior and Safety to intervene in administrative police affairs. Furthermore, there is an interpretation that judicial police duties might be handled by the Ministry of Justice, indicating a change in jurisdiction. Regarding the Development Committee’s discussion on improving the National Police Commission, there are also speculations that the National Police Commission, which has served as a supervisory body over police affairs, might be on the path to abolition.

The Development Committee is expected to offer not only the ‘stick’ of control but also ‘carrots’ to the police. Representative examples include improvements to the rank retirement system and multiple rank system, as well as reforms to the Korean National Police University. Regarding the multiple rank system, it is interpreted as a move to provide more promotion opportunities by allowing more police chiefs to be appointed beyond the previous practice where only some police chiefs could be held by senior superintendents, or by creating new organizations. The police university reform is similarly a policy to appease dissatisfaction among police officers who did not graduate from the Police University.

Professor Yunho Lee, Chair Professor of Police Science at Korea Cyber University, said, "What great significance would there be in a presidential advisory committee?" He added, "Institutional reform cannot be achieved simply by establishing such committees, and the establishment of the Development Committee seems to be a political decision by MOIS regarding police control." Professor Dowoo Kim of Gyeongnam National University’s Department of Police Science said, "There may be some positive effects in some form, but there will also be many side effects."

Meanwhile, after the advisory committee’s recommendations were announced, MOIS carried out personnel appointments for 28 police inspectors. The appointments were made immediately after Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min, who holds the authority to recommend personnel for senior police officers at the rank of superintendent general or higher, returned from a business trip to Georgia, USA. However, an unprecedented incident occurred where seven appointees were reversed about two hours after the initial announcement.

The National Police Agency initially explained to the press that the reversal was due to a simple clerical error by staff, but later changed the explanation, saying the personnel changes were reversed following MOIS’s request for correction. On the morning of the same day, Commissioner General Kim Chang-ryong responded to reporters’ questions on his way to work, saying, "I received a report that there was a mistake in the process of delivering the list."

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