President Lee Jae-myung on the 30th approved at a Cabinet meeting an amendment to the Government Organization Act centered on separating the Ministry of Economy and Finance and abolishing the Prosecutors' Office. The Prosecutors' Office, launched at the time of the government's founding in 1948, is thus disappearing after 78 years. A bill to establish the Broadcasting, Media and Communications Commission, criticized by the opposition as the "Lee Jin-sook removal law," also cleared the Cabinet. As a result, the existing Korea Communications Commission will be abolished, and Lee Jin-sook, the politically appointed chair of the commission, will be automatically dismissed.
That morning at the Yongsan presidential office, Lee presided over the 44th Cabinet meeting and reviewed and approved four items, including the amendment to the Government Organization Act. The promulgated laws take effect immediately upon publication in the official gazette. The amendment to the Government Organization Act abolishes the Prosecutors' Office to separate prosecutorial investigation and indictment functions, and instead creates the Serious Crimes Investigation Office and the Public Prosecution Office, respectively. The Serious Crimes Investigation Office will handle investigations, and the Public Prosecution Office will handle indictments only. After a one-year grace period, they will be established next September under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Ministry of Justice, respectively.
Starting Jan. 2 next year, the Ministry of Economy and Finance will be renamed the Ministry of Finance and Economy. The budget function previously handled by the ministry will be separated and transferred to the Ministry of Planning and Budget under the Prime Minister's Office. It will be taking down its sign 18 years after being created in 2008 by merging the then Ministry of Finance and Economy with the Ministry of Planning and Budget. Initially, the government, the ruling party and the presidential office also pursued a reorganization to transfer the domestic financial policy function of the Financial Services Commission to the Ministry of Finance and Economy and to assign the remaining financial supervision function to a newly established Financial Supervisory Commission. However, on the eve of the National Assembly's plenary session, the financial-sector overhaul was abruptly scrapped.
The Ministry of Environment will be reorganized into the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment. The nuclear power export institutional sector will be handled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the rest of the energy portfolio will be transferred to the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family will also be expanded and reorganized into the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Affairs. In addition, the so-called testimony and appraisal law (Act on Testimony and Appraisal before the National Assembly), which allows witnesses who commit perjury during National Assembly standing committee investigations to be referred for prosecution even after the committee's activity period ends, was also approved by the Cabinet.