Minister of the Interior and Safety Yoon Ho-jung on the 16th said of the police's overall investigation into the Jang Yoon-gi case, "I am sorry for causing public concern," and added that the government will boldly cut out the rotten parts within the police and fix things from the ground up so that no wronged victim ever sheds tears again.
The Minister stated accordingly in an announcement titled "Plan to eradicate internal corruption in police investigations and strengthen democratic oversight" at Government Complex Seoul on the afternoon of the same day.
The Minister said, "Public disappointment and criticism over the overall state of police investigations have been growing recently," adding, "the head of the investigation team in the Jang Yoon-gi case was arrested on charges of destroying evidence, and deliberate collusion and lenient investigating by the team at the time are coming to light one by one."
He added, "As the Minister of the Interior and Safety responsible for the lives and safety of the public, I offer deep regret and words of comfort to the bereaved families of the victims, and I am sorry for causing concern to the public."
The Minister also said, "The government views this situation seriously and, to restore public trust that collapsed due to shoddy and covered-up investigations, we will root out internal corruption in the police and thoroughly overhaul the investigative system," adding, "we will boldly cut out the rotten parts within the police and fix things from the ground up so that no wronged victim ever sheds tears again."
He emphasized, "Not only those responsible for this incident but also any corrupt police officers will be unable to find a foothold within the police."
To prevent a recurrence of this situation, the Minister said, "To root out the problem of police officers' local ties, we will fully introduce a rotation personnel system, and through voluntary reporting and a recusal system for cases involving a police officer's spouse or lineal ascendants and descendants, we will fundamentally block the practice of covering for one's own."
He also said, "We will operate an internal corruption investigation unit under the direct control of the head of the National Office of Investigation (NOI) to track to the end investigative misconduct and corrupt acts at police agencies nationwide and sternly punish them based on a zero-tolerance principle."
The Minister said, "We will ensure that a thorough monitoring and control system over police investigations functions through strong democratic control mechanisms and checks and balances among institutions, not stopping at internal corruption inspections and eradication."
He said, "We will strengthen the authority of the National Police Commission so it can properly fulfill its original role as a civilian control body over the police, and we will establish an 'investigation human rights inspection and investigation body' dedicated to external monitoring and control of police investigations," adding, "we will make democratic control and independent oversight substantive."
The Minister stated, "By having civilian investigators with expertise independently examine shoddy or unfair investigations and failures to act on prosecutors' requests for supplementary investigations, we will, from an outside-the-police perspective, root out evidence destruction within the police or deliberate shoddy investigations."
He added, "We will strengthen the role of the 'police investigation review committee,' which deliberates on appeals, by composing it of citizens and private experts from diverse fields," and said, "in particular, for cases related to the socially vulnerable, we will expand the right to appeal and ensure there is not a single lapse."
He then said, "Through checks between the soon-to-be-launched Prosecution Service Office and the police, we will fundamentally block the possibility of shoddy investigations."
The Minister said, "If fair progress in an investigation is difficult because the police do not comply with the Prosecution Service Office prosecutor's request for a supplementary investigation, prosecutors will be allowed to change the investigation team and the investigating agency, and if there is a request from a Prosecution Service Office prosecutor for joint cooperative investigation in major cases such as those with statutes of limitations approaching, we will ensure immediate compliance."
He added, "By making maximum use of the investigative authority of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency to thoroughly investigate illegal acts and misconduct by judicial police officers belonging to other investigative bodies, we will use this opportunity to firmly set the police's discipline right."