Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won arrives at his office in the Jeokseon Hyundai Building in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Sept. 10 to prepare for his confirmation hearing.YONHAP
Kim Won-bae
The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo.
The police request for an arrest warrant for former Democratic Party floor leader Kim Byung-kee after a yearlong investigation sounded almost like a confession: “We cannot investigate key figures in the ruling camp.”
Complaints against Kim were filed in September of last year and initially scattered among several police stations. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s Public Crime Investigation Unit took them over that December. Police summoned Kim seven times through April of this year but reached no conclusion.
The delay became so serious that an investigation review committee convened last month at the request of complainants. Rather than resolving complex legal questions, the committee effectively had to prod investigators, ordering them to handle the case within a month. Only then did police seek an arrest warrant. An agency with the will and ability to investigate should not have needed such pressure.
The case involving Jang Yun-gi raises graver concerns. Park Seong-ju, former head of the National Office of Investigation and others were indicted without detention on charges of abuse of authority. They allegedly rejected requests for a joint investigation and told officers to “quietly” handle a case in which Jang was accused of raping and attempting to kill a Vietnamese woman before killing a high school girl in Gwangju.
The courts have yet to rule, but the indictment of the country’s top police investigator is itself alarming. Can politically sensitive cases be properly handled in such an organization? It is not difficult to imagine what may happen to complaints against Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won, now assigned to Yeongdeungpo Police Station.
In the past, an organization such as the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office’s anticorruption division, formerly its special investigation division, would have examined the allegations as a whole. The investigative system created by the “complete deprivation of prosecutorial investigative powers” reform instead divides jurisdiction according to the type of crime and suspect.
Consider the allegations surrounding Kim Seung-won. Possible violations of the antigraft law involving the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety fall to police. Suspected capital-markets violations involving Covid-19 treatment developer Genencell and its largest shareholder, Sejong Medical, would fall under the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency. Alleged bribery connected to Kim’s duties as a lawmaker could fall within the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials.
But crimes do not occur according to the chapter headings of the Criminal Act. With such jurisdictional walls, who will take responsibility for pursuing a complicated case to the end? Difficult investigations could easily become perfunctory and then fade away.
A bribery case involving a senior Board of Audit and Inspection official offers a warning. The investigation, launched in October 2021 over allegations involving 1.58 billion won ($1.18 million), bounced between the CIO and prosecutors for four and a half years. After a detention warrant sought by the CIO was rejected, prosecutors requested further investigation. The CIO refused, saying there was no legal basis.
Prosecutors then tried to conduct supplementary investigation themselves, but a court rejected their search warrant, saying they lacked legal grounds to investigate. In April, only allegations involving 290 million won led to indictment, while allegations concerning another 1.29 billion won were dropped. Future corruption investigations could become trapped in the same institutional maze.
It is true that prosecutors’ former special investigation divisions created serious problems by concentrating resources on selected targets, sometimes producing excessive investigations or probes into unrelated offenses. But eliminating abusive investigative practices is different from weakening the state’s ability to investigate corruption involving political power.
Under the Lee Jae Myung administration, special prosecutors have effectively replaced such prosecutorial units. Yet special counsels are not permanent institutions. They can investigate only cases tolerated by the president and the parliamentary majority. Special counsel investigations targeting the opposition or a previous administration may be possible. Establishing one to investigate the incumbent ruling camp — “living power” — is far harder politically.
Margaret Satterthwaite, a New York University law professor and United Nations (UN) special rapporteur, submitted a 2024 report to the UN Human Rights Council titled “Safeguarding the independence of judicial systems in the face of contemporary challenges to democracy.” It states that “prosecutors check power outside of elections.” Holding public officials legally accountable for corruption and bribery is also essential to safeguarding democracy.
An elected government and parliamentary majority can reduce prosecutorial powers and divide investigative authority among agencies. But they must not undermine a system capable of pursuing crimes committed by powerful people and holding them accountable.
If investigative agencies are divided by crime type, channels for supplementing one another are severed and the final fallback is a special counsel requiring legislative approval, investigating the ruling establishment may become virtually impossible.
The ruling camp often stresses elected authority and calls for “democratic control” over investigative agencies. But those who exercise that control must themselves be checked by autonomous investigators and independent courts. That balance is necessary for a healthy democracy. Without it, democratic control can become political control, leaving those in power beyond meaningful legal scrutiny.
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.
