Pedestrians look at newly installed signs for the Public Prosecution Office and other agencies at the Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office and Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office complex in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Oct. 1, a day before the Prosecutors’ Office was abolished and the Public Prosecution Office and Serious Crimes Investigation Agency officially launched.JOINT PRESS CORPS
Keum Tae-sup
The author is a former lawmaker and prosecutor.
In 2005, when I was a prosecutor, I helped create the prosecution service’s emblem. I did not design it myself, but commissioned professionals, gathered opinions and selected the final design. It cost 50 million won (approximately $50,000 at the time).
A few days ago, the prosecution disappeared into history, and so did its emblem. Because the name and symbol were engraved on forms, buildings, road signs and maintenance hole covers, replacing them reportedly cost more than 6.5 billion won. I spent only 12 years as a prosecutor, but thought that emblem might endure. Seeing it vanish after 20 years leaves mixed feelings.
The whirlwind called “prosecution reform,” driven by Democratic Party (DP) hard-liners since the Moon Jae-in administration, has culminated in the drastic remedy of deleting the institution itself.
But has the prosecution really disappeared? Its name has changed to the Public Prosecution Office and its investigative authority has been stripped away. Yet prosecutors remain. The Constitution explicitly refers to prosecutors and the prosecutor general. Unless the Constitution is amended, prosecutors cannot be abolished. If they cannot be renamed “prosecution officers,” is changing the agency’s name and redefining their duties not an attempt to circumvent the Constitution? The awkwardness is evident in retaining “prosecutor general” rather than calling the agency head the “public prosecution commissioner.”
One might argue that prosecutors have fundamentally changed because they can no longer investigate. But contradictions abound. Under the law governing the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, CIO prosecutors may perform acts necessary for “investigation and the institution and maintenance of public prosecution.” Why may they investigate while Public Prosecution Office prosecutors cannot?
Special prosecutors also investigate. Even as the DP government abolished the prosecution service, it has multiplied special counsel investigations whose prosecutors possess both investigative and prosecutorial powers. Why does the separation of investigation and prosecution not apply to them?
A special counsel may receive prosecutors dispatched from the Public Prosecution Office or CIO. Can a prosecutor dispatched from the former not investigate while one from the latter can? Or does a Public Prosecution Office prosecutor acquire investigative authority after being dispatched? Even if legal, does someone who no longer investigates regain investigative skills with a transfer order? Criminal procedure in Korea is not a game.
The prosecution bears responsibility for the humiliation it faces. Its attempts to protect its own in the Kim Hak-ui case and its submissive conduct when prosecutors voluntarily surrendered their phones while questioning former first lady Kim Keon Hee were the tip of the iceberg. Given its failures, the prosecution has little ground for complaint.
But “you were wrong, therefore I am right” is a logical fallacy. Whether the new system works or instead creates confusion and leaves victims suffering is separate from the prosecution’s past wrongdoings.
As a lawmaker, I made separation of investigation and prosecution a campaign pledge. The principle means one person or organization should not monopolize both powers. Investigators who decide whether to prosecute their own cases risk bias and loss of neutrality. Much of the human rights abuses from excessive investigations stems from this structure.
The prosecution’s special investigation divisions were a prime example. It was said that even courts hesitated to reject warrants they requested. The safeguards were not working. Many of the prosecution’s worst abuses originated there. Eliminating or sharply reducing units that initiate investigations and decide on prosecution could have resolved most of the problem.
Instead, the DP stripped investigative authority from ordinary criminal divisions handling everyday cases and removed prosecutors’ power to supervise police, damaging the foundations of criminal procedure. It is like operating on the heart because the leg is injured.
The prosecution supposedly disappeared, but I am not sure it actually did. Today’s “reform” is too inconsistent to answer even that basic question. Ordinary criminal divisions have been hollowed out, while special investigation divisions survive in the form of special counsels and the CIO.
When power changes hands, a special counsel monopolizing investigation and prosecution will dig into the Lee Jae Myung administration. If the DP later returns to power, what then? Abolish special counsels and create “special-special counsels”? Strip special counsels of investigative powers but give both investigative and prosecutorial authority to their successors?
The DP is turning Korea’s criminal procedure into a patchwork.
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.
