The National Police Agency's headquarters in Seodaemun District, western Seoul, on Aug. 26YONHAP
Police began implementing new conflict-of-interest guidelines Wednesday, requiring cases involving close relatives of certain police officers to be transferred to another police station.
Under the guidelines, an investigator must immediately request recusal upon learning that a person involved in a case is a family member of a police officer who currently works at the same police station or worked there within the past three years. Family members covered by the rules include spouses, direct ascendants and descendants and siblings.
The case must then be transferred, under the supervision of the relevant provincial or metropolitan police agency, to another police station within the jurisdiction of the same court.
Police already had a recusal system preventing investigators from directly handling cases involving their own family members. Following the Jang Yun-gi case, however, the system has been expanded so that not only is an investigator barred from handling a case involving a family member, but the police station where that investigator works is also prohibited from handling the case.
Jang is accused of killing a high school student in Gwangju on May 5 during an attempted sexual assault. Prosecutors have demanded the death penalty against Jang on Aug. 31, after he was indicted for the alleged killing on June 2.
Public outrage intensified after the revelation that Jang's father was an active-duty police officer and that he had allegedly tampered with evidence related to his son's alleged crime during the investigation. Jang's father is reported to have worked at Gwangsan Police Station, which handled Jang's case, until March last year.
Murder suspect Jang Yun-gi is referred to prosecutors from the Gwangju Seobu Police Station on May 14.NEWS1
The scope of relatives covered by the rules has also been expanded from spouses and direct ascendants and descendants to include siblings.
The guidelines follow recommendations from a committee to reform police investigations, composed primarily of experts from outside the police, following controversy over the handling of the Jang’s case.
Even under the new system, police must obtain approval from the head of the relevant provincial or metropolitan police agency if exceptional circumstances require an investigation to continue without transferring the case to another police station.
Police cited situations in which an investigation must continue to protect a victim or when a suspect needs to be detained following an emergency arrest or an arrest in the act. In such cases, authorities must review each month whether the handling of the case remains appropriate and whether a transfer is necessary.
“We will continue discussions to ensure that follow-up measures related to the implementation of the revised Criminal Procedure Act and other issues under review to strengthen oversight of police investigations proceed without disruption,” the National Police Agency said.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
