Sejong location of Daejeon's new crime investigation office sparks local backlash
Officials and lawyers argue that the Daejeon office's location will hamper coordination between the branch and courts, prosecutors and prisons still based in Daejeon.
The office of the preparatory task force for the launch of the serious crimes investigation agency at the Changseong-dong annex of the Government Complex Seoul in Jongno District, central Seoul, on April 30YONHAP
DAEJEON — The Daejeon branch of Korea’s new serious crimes investigation agency will be based in Sejong, sparking backlash from officials and lawyers who argue that this decision will hamper coordination between the branch and courts, prosecutors and prisons still based in Daejeon.
Alongside those in Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Gwangju and Suwon, Gyeonggi, the Daejeon office of the serious crimes investigation agency is set to open on Oct. 2, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Daejeon city government on Tuesday.
While the other five are in the cities that they are named after, the Daejeon branch — which has jurisdiction over Daejeon, Sejong, and North and South Chungcheong provinces — is slated to be housed in a single vacant building in Sejong’s new town district.
The ministry’s launch preparation team explained that no vacant building in Daejeon had the minimum area requirement of 9,900 square meters (106,562.7 square feet), leaving Sejong, some 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) away, as the only option for a reportedly temporary headquarters.
Under the revised Criminal Procedure Act passed by the National Assembly last week, prosecutors’ offices will be reorganized into “public prosecution offices” and handle only indictment and trial duties; the serious crimes investigation agency will take over investigations for six major crime categories: corruption, economic crimes, drugs, defense procurement, national security and cybercrime.
About 200 people, including prosecutors and investigators, are expected to work at the Daejeon branch. Some prosecutors at the district and high prosecutors’ offices in Daejeon may be reassigned. Most of them, however, reportedly do not want to be transferred as the move would strip them of prosecutor status and drop them from Grade 3 — the rank tied to prosecutorial authority — to Grade 4 or 5 on the general civil service scale.
“If the [Daejeon] office is established in Sejong, investigators will have to commute between Sejong and Daejeon — a one-way trip of 40 to 50 minutes — for warrant requests for compulsory investigations, predetention suspect interrogations, future case consultations with the public prosecution office and courtroom testimony,” attorney Yang Hong-gyu said. “Suspects in [Daejeon prison] will also need to be moved to Sejong to be investigated, which is inconvenient.”
The exterior of the Daejeon District Court in DaejeonYONHAP
The Dunsan-dong neighborhood in the city’s Seo District is home to the District Court, High Court, District Prosecutors’ Office, High Prosecutors’ Office, Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency and a cluster of law firms, giving the area what is considered the country’s most efficient “one-stop legal infrastructure” for arrest and detention warrants, suspect meetings, prosecution and court appearances.
Daejeon Mayor Heo Tae-jeong and Rep. Park Yong-kap, who represents Daejeon’s Jung District, met with Interior Minister Yun Ho-jung last Wednesdayto request that the Daejeon branch be built in the originally intended city instead. The two proposed the site of the former Daejeon tax office in Seonhwa-dong, Jung District, and land in the planned innovation city zone in Dong District as available alternatives. Yun responded that he would “actively consider relocating the Daejeon office to Daejeon.”
But once the branch opens in October, the relocation is unlikely to occur anytime soon. Constructing a new building alone would take four to five years, excluding other hurdles. And the recent Cabinet-approved reserve budget for launching the new agency did not include funding specifically for the Daejeon office. It was left out of both the first and second rounds of reserve budget allocations, leaving the timeline for a new Daejeon building or relocation plan uncertain.
The Daejeon chapter of the main opposition People Power Party criticized the outcome.
“How does it make sense for the Daejeon crime investigation office to not be in Daejeon?” they said. “With the Daejeon mayor and all seven of Daejeon’s lawmakers belonging to the ruling party, Daejeon keeps getting passed over anyway, like with the advanced industry investment plan.”
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.
