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🇰🇷 South Korea /Elections & Politics

South Korea's opposition passes bill curbing prosecutors' powers amid political row

From Hankyoreh · () Korean

Translated from Korean, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Approved/passed
  • South Korea's opposition-led National Assembly passed a bill to abolish prosecutors' supplementary investigation rights, centralizing investigative authority with the police.
  • The bill aims to completely separate investigation and prosecution, allowing prosecutors only to request fact-finding from the police.
  • A controversial clause added to the bill, which specifies grounds for dismissal of public prosecution, has sparked debate, with critics linking it to a potential legal maneuver for a specific politician.

South Korea's opposition-led National Assembly has passed a contentious bill that significantly curtails the power of prosecutors, abolishing their supplementary investigation rights and aiming to centralize investigative authority with the police. The legislation, driven by the Democratic Party, seeks to achieve a complete separation of investigation and prosecution powers.

Under the revised Criminal Procedure Act, prosecutors will no longer have direct investigative authority. Their role will be limited to requesting fact-finding from the police, who will now be the primary investigative body. While prosecutors can offer legal opinions or advice on evidence collection, they cannot initiate investigations themselves. The bill mandates that police must comply with requests for supplementary investigations within one month, though the enforcement mechanism for non-compliance has been weakened.

They created a new 'dismissal law' because Lee Jae-myung has no chance of acquittal and it's difficult to withdraw the charges.

— Han Dong-hoonIndependent lawmaker criticizing the newly added clause in the Criminal Procedure Act.

A significant point of contention is a newly added clause specifying grounds for the dismissal of public prosecution. Critics, including independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon, argue this provision was created to potentially dismiss cases against specific politicians, such as the ongoing bribery case involving Lee Jae-myung. "They created a new 'dismissal law' because Lee Jae-myung has no chance of acquittal and it's difficult to withdraw the charges," Han stated.

However, Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Yong-min refuted this, asserting that "dismissal of prosecution is a judicial decision and has nothing to do with the withdrawal of charges." Some legal experts view the clause as a codification of existing Supreme Court precedents, while acknowledging it could provide grounds for defendants to argue for dismissal. The bill also includes provisions for electronic record-keeping of all investigative data and relaxes some direct supervisory roles for prosecutors over special police investigators.

Dismissal of prosecution is a judicial decision and has nothing to do with the withdrawal of charges.

— Kim Yong-minDemocratic Party lawmaker responding to criticism of the new bill.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Hankyoreh in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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