The Supreme Prosecutors' Office inspection committee is said to have determined that prosecutors who collectively walked out of the perjury trial of former Gyeonggi Province vice governor for peace Lee Hwa-young cannot be disciplined.
According to legal sources on the 21st, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office inspection committee recently held a closed-door meeting and concluded that it would be difficult to discipline the prosecutors.
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office inspection committee is composed of at least five and up to nine Commissioners, including the Chairperson and vice chairperson. Among them are outside members commissioned by the prosecutor general.
The inspection committee reviews major inspection matters, including misconduct by Prosecution Service staff, presents the results to the prosecutor general, and recommends necessary measures.
Regardless of the inspection committee's outcome, the final decision on whether to seek discipline rests with the prosecutor general. The prosecutor general may decide differently from the inspection committee. If the prosecutor general seeks discipline, the matter goes through the Ministry of Justice inspection committee and is decided and finalized by the disciplinary committee.
Earlier, on Nov. 25 last year, four prosecutors from the Suwon District Prosecutors' Office all left the courtroom after expressing an opinion to recuse the panel, saying they could not comply with "unfair litigation direction," when the court denied the prosecution's witness request during a preparatory hearing in the case before Criminal Division 11 of the Suwon District Court (presiding judge Song Byung-hoon) on charges including violating the Act on Testimony and Appraisal, etc., before the National Assembly by the former vice governor.
In response, the presidential office held a briefing on the 26th, the next day, and said, "President Lee ordered swift and stern inspections and investigations in accordance with the law and principles regarding acts that disrupt courtroom order, such as the collective walkout by prosecutors who are public officials, because insulting judges is an act of denying judicial order and the constitutional order." Minister of Justice Jung Sung-ho ordered an inspection of the prosecutors in question at the president's direction.
At the time, the Minister Jeong said at The National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee that it was very rare for prosecutors to seek a judge's recusal and noted that going so far as to walk out immediately was problematic, but some in the prosecution pushed back, calling it an excessive inspection.