Lee Seok-yeon, chairperson of the presidential National Unification Committee, said on the 12th that "the complete abolition of prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority violates the Constitution."
The chairperson said in a statement that "although the Constitution does not prevent abolishing the Prosecution Service and dispersing prosecutors' powers, the complete deprivation of prosecutorial investigative authority as a主体 of investigation is potentially unconstitutional because it runs counter to the principle of systemic legitimacy under the Constitution."
He argued that the Democratic Party of Korea's push to completely abolish prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority is unconstitutional.
The chairperson noted that the current Constitution (Article 12(3), Article 16) defines the application for warrants necessary for arrest, detention, seizure, and search as prosecutors' exclusive authority, and said, "To completely strip prosecutors of investigative authority, the Constitution must be amended to change the warrant application right—either to an investigative agency as in the founding Constitution—or delegated by statute." He said the Democratic Party's proposed amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act is unconstitutional because it does not recognize the investigative authority of prosecutors, who are the agents that apply for warrants.
The chairperson said, "Not only from the standpoint of victim protection, discovering the substantive truth, and achieving swift justice in criminal law, but also to uphold the spirit of the Constitution, prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority should be recognized in some form." He added, "If it is a responsible major party, it must not abandon the basic principles for the community's future in the name of reform by clinging to the immediate preferences of its base or partisan interests."
He went on, "A system itself is neither good nor evil. Whatever the system, the issue lies with the people who run it," emphasizing that "the question of prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority should be discussed in that light."
The chairperson is a conservative figure who served as head of the Ministry of Government Legislation in the Lee Myung-bak administration. Lee Jae-myung, the president, recruited him during the last presidential election to serve as co-chair of the election committee, and he has served as National Unification Committee chairperson since the administration began.