Kim Osu: "The Mediation Proposal on Complete Prosecution Reform Only Delays Implementation... Has Many Issues"

Prosecutor General Kim Oh-soo held a press conference on the 25th at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in Seocho-gu, Seoul, and expressed his position regarding the prosecution reform mediation plan agreed upon by the ruling and opposition parties. Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

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[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Kyung-jun] Prosecutor General Kim Oh-soo expressed his position that "the prosecution cannot agree to the ruling party and opposition's ‘complete prosecution investigation reform (Geomsu Wanbak) mediation plan’ and clearly opposes it."

At a press conference on the 25th, Prosecutor General Kim said, "The mediation plan merely delays the implementation timing of the ‘Geomsu Wanbak’ bill for a short period," and added, "We cannot agree to the mediation plan and clearly oppose it."

At this event, Prosecutor General Kim pointed out four issues with the Geomsu Wanbak mediation plan. He emphasized that ▲ the separation of investigation and prosecution has the potential to be unconstitutional ▲ a gap will occur in the investigation of six major crimes ▲ banning additional and separate investigations will cause irreparable harm to the public ▲ and the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Criminal Justice Reform (Sagwaeteukwi) adopting a conclusion-first, discussion-later approach is a major problem of the mediation plan.

Prosecutor General Kim explained, "I have repeatedly stated that separating the prosecutor’s investigation and prosecution rights and depriving the investigation right has the potential to be unconstitutional," and added, "Separating investigative prosecutors and prosecuting prosecutors could be interpreted as requiring the prosecuting prosecutor to decide whether to prosecute based solely on investigation records without ever seeing the faces of the parties involved or hearing their statements."

He stressed that if the prosecution loses its investigation rights over six major crimes such as public officials and election crimes, the response to crime will weaken. Kim said, "If the prosecution is prohibited from investigating public officials and election crimes, it is obvious that the state’s crime response capability against public official corruption and election offenders will significantly decrease, and the public would not want that," and raised his voice, "Election crimes have a short statute of limitations of six months, so cases nearing the statute of limitations risk being handled poorly due to repeated supplementary investigation requests with the police."

He added, "If prosecution investigation rights are suddenly abolished around early September, just before or halfway through the statute of limitations for this presidential and local election, considerable confusion is expected."

Furthermore, Prosecutor General Kim pointed out problems with the mediation plan’s prohibition on investigations that deviate from the unity and identity of crimes. He said, "There can be no objection to banning separate investigations," but expressed concern, "If only crimes with unity and identity can be investigated, depending on interpretation, it could result in no investigations of any related crimes beyond the specific crime."

He also said, "Investigations of the principal offender and accomplices differ because suspects are different; additional damages differ because victims are different; false accusation and perjury investigations differ because the facts of the crime differ, so there is no unity or identity, and as a result, the back-and-forth transfer of cases between prosecution and police will delay case handling, causing irreparable harm to the public in the meantime."

Prosecutor General Kim also criticized that the Geomsu Wanbak mediation plan was produced without sufficient discussion in the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Criminal Justice Reform, calling the sequence of events wrong. He said, "This special committee is concluding with ‘the establishment of the Central Investigation Agency linked to Geomsu Wanbak’," and emphasized, "This is completely different from the special committee approach we proposed at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, which was to discuss first and conclude later."

He added, "A special committee that decides on Geomsu Wanbak first and then sets the implementation timing diminishes its significance and makes it difficult to secure sufficient procedural legitimacy," and concluded, "I hope these issues will be calmly discussed during the legislative process in the National Assembly and that a procedure to form a public consensus will be established."

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