Law and Prosecution to Hold In-Depth Debate on 'Search and Seizure Warrant Hearing System'?

Prosecution: "Interrogation system inherently allows external leakage of investigation details"
Court: "Unfounded concern... Not all search warrants are subject to interrogation"

Attention is focused on whether the court and the prosecution will find common ground regarding the 'pre-hearing system for search and seizure warrants' that the court is promoting. The main concern is whether the court, which seeks to implement the pre-hearing system for search and seizure warrants, and investigative agencies such as the prosecution, which aim to block it, can reach an agreement.

On the 2nd, the Supreme Court Criminal Law Research Association will hold a joint academic conference with the Korean Criminal Law Association to discuss the current status and improvement measures of the practical handling of search and seizure warrants. This is the first time that judges, prosecutors, lawyers, professors, and police officers have gathered to debate the pre-hearing system for search and seizure warrants. Attending from the court are Chief Judge Jang Jaewon of the Gimcheon Branch of Daegu District Court and Judge Choi Munsu of the Seoul High Court, and from the prosecution are Chief Prosecutor Han Munhyuk of the Namyangju Branch of Uijeongbu District Prosecutors' Office and Prosecutor So Jaehwan of Ulsan District Prosecutors' Office.

Inside and outside the legal community, there is speculation that although the court is using the format of an academic conference, this meeting will effectively conclude the official collection of opinions on the pre-hearing system for search and seizure warrants, leading to a heated debate.

Earlier, the Court Administration Office announced in March this year a draft amendment to the Criminal Procedure Rules to introduce a pre-hearing system for search and seizure warrants, which did not previously exist. It also added a provision requiring the inclusion of 'search terms' to be used for analysis in applications for search and seizure warrants related to electronic information such as mobile phones.

In response, investigative agencies including the prosecution immediately opposed the move. Their argument is that introducing a hearing system for search and seizure warrants could cause problems in terms of the confidentiality and speed of investigations.

At the discussion, the prosecution is expected to argue that the hearing system for search and seizure warrants targeting investigative agencies would provide an excuse to expose investigation details externally. If face-to-face hearings for search and seizure warrants proceed, the number of people involved in the procedure increases, raising the possibility of leakage of investigation information and increasing the likelihood of evidence destruction.

The prosecution anticipates that if the system is introduced prematurely without verifying the effectiveness of face-to-face hearings, information about search and seizure could be leaked, procedures delayed, and criminals given more opportunities to destroy evidence.

Regarding claims that investigative agencies would carefully request search and seizure warrants anticipating judges' face-to-face hearings if the pre-hearing system is introduced, the prosecution is known to argue that "the idea that investigative agencies deceive judges and indiscriminately request warrants, and that courts are fooled or complicit, acting as 'warrant vending machines' because there is no face-to-face hearing, completely denies the search and seizure warrant system maintained through written hearings for 70 years and the court's role in controlling compulsory investigations to protect citizens' fundamental rights."

Chief Prosecutor A expressed concern, saying, "The court plans to summon only investigative agencies or informants for hearings, which is a very dangerous idea," adding, "There is a high possibility that informants will leak information about the search and seizure to the subject of the seizure, and it will be impossible to assess the informants' credibility during the hearing process."

He also said, "If face-to-face hearings are held for investigative agencies, time will be wasted reviewing records and scheduling separate dates," and "Although the hearings will be held privately, the fact that a search and seizure warrant has been requested will be exposed externally during the process of prosecutors or police attending the hearing."

Furthermore, it is known that the discussion will raise the idea of operating the search and seizure warrant hearing system only for cases directly investigated by prosecutors. The prosecution's response to this is that it is a "dangerous idea." Since cases that the prosecution can initiate are limited to corruption and economic crimes, the main investigation targets would be politicians or businesspeople, and only they might be given the opportunity to avoid compulsory investigations from the search and seizure stage.

On the other hand, the court acknowledges that while some of the various issues raised by investigative agencies regarding the search and seizure warrant hearing system should be reflected, a significant portion are merely unfounded concerns.

First, the court believes that investigative agencies accept the search and seizure warrant hearing system similarly to pre-trial hearings for detained suspects. The court's view is that face-to-face hearings related to search and seizure warrants will not be frequent, but investigative agencies tend to overinterpret it as applying to all search and seizure warrants.

Chief Judge B explained, "They criticize assuming that most search and seizure warrants will undergo face-to-face hearings," adding, "The number of cases subject to actual face-to-face hearings will be very small, and since it is a system to be used exceptionally, adverse effects cannot be significant."

The court sees the change as merely shifting from judges calling prosecutors directly by phone to ask questions when additional explanations are needed regarding search and seizure warrants, to face-to-face explanations with explicit legal grounds.

The court even expects that the introduction of the search and seizure warrant hearing system could broaden the scope of possible search and seizure and accelerate the speed of investigations.

Chief Judge C predicted, "The scope of search and seizure could be expanded through additional or supplementary explanations in face-to-face hearings for parts that cannot be sufficiently explained in writing, and the process of dismissing warrants and reapplying for them to provide additional explanations could be reduced."

The Court Administration Office initially planned to implement the amended rules from the 1st of this month, but the process of collecting opinions was prolonged due to opposition from the Ministry of Justice and investigative agencies. Accordingly, after gathering opinions from the discussion, the revised rules are expected to be re-announced for legislation and implemented before September, when Chief Justice Kim Myeong-su retires.

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