The Lee Jae-myung government confirmed on the 7th a government reorganization plan that includes abolishing the prosecution office next year. As early as September next year, the prosecution will be reduced to an agency that only handles indictment and maintenance of public prosecution.
While the reorganization plan has been proposed, there are still unresolved issues. In the legal community, there are concerns that abolishing the prosecution office and creating a public prosecution agency could be unconstitutional. Additionally, whether to abolish the prosecution's supplementary investigative powers and how to check the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which will have significant investigative authority, remain as tasks.
The government has decided to dismantle the prosecution office by September next year and establish a Serious Crime Investigation Agency under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to handle serious criminal investigations. However, there are concerns in academia that abolishing the prosecution office without a constitutional amendment may be unconstitutional.
Article 89 of the Constitution states, 'The appointment of the Prosecutor General must be deliberated by the State Council.' Professor Cha Jin-ah of Korea University Law School stated at a National Assembly public hearing on the 4th, 'The Prosecutor General is an institution stipulated in the Constitution,' adding that 'changing this designation through laws subordinate to the Constitution would be unconstitutional.' Meanwhile, the Democratic Party insists that 'the Prosecutor General is the head of an administrative agency, not a constitutional institution.'
How to handle the prosecution's supplementary investigative powers also remains a question. Some in the Democratic Party argue that true separation of investigation and prosecution can only be achieved if the prosecution is not allowed to intervene in police investigations, asserting that supplementary investigative powers should be abolished. However, in the legal community, there is a prevailing opinion that supplementary investigations are essential as a mechanism to regulate lenient investigations or excessive investigations by the police.
Moreover, the fact that the Ministry of the Interior and Safety will become a colossal agency overseeing not only the police organization but also serious crime investigators raises concerns about the lack of mechanisms to control it, which the government must address. Professor Kim Bong-soo of Chonnam National University Law School noted during a discussion hosted by five domestic criminal law associations on the 5th, 'We might witness an uncomfortable reality where the subject of misuse of investigative powers simply switches from the prosecution to the police.'