'20s Presidential Election Offenders' 2,001 Booked, 609 Prosecuted... Booked Individuals Up 127%

40% Black Propaganda · 35% Ballot Paper Photography... 1,313 People Filed Complaints
First Presidential Election After Investigation Authority Adjustment... Massive Exposure of 'Election Investigation' Issues

[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Kyung-jun] The prosecution investigated election-related offenses in the 20th presidential election, indicting about 2,000 people and bringing about 600 to trial.

On the 12th, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office announced that it had booked 2,001 suspects related to the 20th presidential election and indicted 609 of them, detaining 12. This represents a 127.9% increase compared to the 878 suspects booked during the 19th presidential election in 2017. However, although the number of indictments increased compared to the 19th election, the indictment rate decreased by 27.9%.

By type of offense, 101 were related to bribery elections, 810 to black propaganda, 389 to violent elections, and 701 to other types. The proportion of black propaganda offenses surged to 40.5%, more than double compared to 18.7% in the 19th presidential election.

Additionally, the number of complaints and accusations also increased significantly compared to the 19th presidential election. In the 20th election, a total of 1,313 people were subject to complaints and accusations, about twice the 688 recognized by investigative agencies. In the 19th election, 429 people were subject to complaints and accusations.

The prosecution stated that it found considerable issues during the investigation of election offenses nationwide for the first time since the adjustment of investigative authority between prosecution and police last year. Due to the abolition of prosecution’s supervision over police investigations, prosecutors cannot directly intervene in police investigations, and in the last month of the six-month short statute of limitations, about 300 election suspects were sent to the prosecution or records of non-prosecution were forwarded all at once.

Legal circles agree that when the police transfer cases close to the statute of limitations, there is practically insufficient physical time to request supplementary investigations from the police again or to conduct supplementary investigations directly by the prosecution.

The prosecution explained that when the police close cases with non-prosecution and send records to the prosecution, even if the prosecution requests reinvestigation due to possible charges, it takes a considerable amount of time to receive results, revealing problems related to the approaching statute of limitations.

A prosecution official said, "To resolve the problem of the six-month short statute of limitations for election offenses, which is unprecedented in foreign legislation, it is necessary to devise a plan to drastically improve the cooperation system between the prosecution and police from the booking stage to the final disposition of election offenses."

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