'Police to Remove Principle of Exclusive Responsibility for Supplementary and Reinvestigation... Legislative Notice of Investigation Guidelines Amendment'

Since the adjustment of investigative authority between the prosecution and police during the Moon Jae-in administration, the Ministry of Justice is set to amend related laws to allow the prosecution to conduct some supplementary and reinvestigations, which were virtually handled exclusively by the police. The principle that the police solely handle supplementary investigations of cases sent by the police will be removed, and the conditions under which the prosecution can receive cases for reinvestigation will be broadened.

Minister of Justice Han Dong-hoon [Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 31st, the Ministry of Justice announced that it will publicly notify a draft amendment to the "Regulations on Mutual Cooperation between Prosecutors and Judicial Police Officers and General Investigation Guidelines" (Investigation Guidelines), aimed at strengthening the prosecution's participation in supplementary investigations and its authority to request case transfers. The public notification period is from August 1 to September 11.

The Ministry of Justice explained, "This is intended to improve the side effects such as investigation delays and inadequate investigations caused by the adjustment of investigative authority, as well as the protection gaps for the public resulting from the abolition of the complainant's right to object under the 'Complete Removal of Prosecution's Investigation Authority Act' (Geomsu Wanbak Act), within the framework of current laws."

Since June last year, the Ministry of Justice has operated the "Prosecution-Police Responsible Investigation System Maintenance Council," composed of academics, practical experts, and members from prosecution and police agencies, and has gathered opinions from related agencies and experts through consultations with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to prepare this amendment.

The amendment removes the principle that supplementary investigations are exclusively handled by the police and allows the prosecution and police to share responsibilities according to the characteristics of individual cases. In particular, it stipulates that, in principle, the prosecution shall conduct supplementary investigations for cases where more than one month has passed since the prosecution accepted the case, or where substantial investigations have already been conducted by the prosecution after the case was sent by the police.

It also includes provisions that, in certain cases where the prosecutor's request for reinvestigation following the police's decision not to prosecute is not fulfilled, the prosecutor may receive the case for completion. This changes the existing guidelines, which only allowed the prosecution to request case transfers in cases involving legal violations, clear violations of evidence collection rules, or errors in statute of limitations or prosecution requirements in reinvestigation cases.

Requests for reinvestigation aimed at clearly determining the presence or absence of charges are also included as conditions for requesting case transfers.

The Ministry of Justice cited the police's "non-prosecution closure authority" resulting from the adjustment of investigative authority and the abolition of the complainant's right to object under last year's Geomsu Wanbak Act as grounds, noting that the prosecution's requests for reinvestigation and case transfer have effectively become the only remedy procedures. The amendment also abolishes the police's system of rejecting complaints and accusations, mandating that investigative agencies must accept complaints and accusations.

When a prosecutor requests supplementary investigation from the police, a deadline of one month is set in principle, and the police are required to comply with supplementary investigation requests and reinvestigation requests within three months.

The amendment also includes provisions to strengthen cooperation by mandating mutual consultation in cases where one party requests or in election cases where the statute of limitations is shortened to three months.

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