Senior Reporter Seong Han-Yong’s Politics Behind the Scenes 360
Overcoming the failure of the Roh Moo-hyun administration and a great achievement in the Moon Jae-in administration
The task at hand is to settle the adjustment of the prosecutor’s and police officers’ right to be implemented earlier this year.
Separation of right of investigation and right of prosecution is the ultimate goal… Don’t rush
The 2017 candidate Seung-min Yoo’s pledge to establish an investigation office should be referenced
Lee Nak-yeon, the representative of the Democratic Party, is in conversation with Ho-jung Yoon, chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the Democratic Party’s Legislative Judiciary Committee meeting held at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul on the morning of October 8 last year. yunhap news
There is a word called Ubocheonri (牛步千里). It means going a thousand miles in small steps. It is very important to be in the right direction when pursuing reform. Because the pace of reform can be controlled, it is not easy to change direction. Prosecution reform would be such a task. The ultimate goal of the prosecution reform is the separation of the right to investigate and the right to prosecute. The investigation agency and the prosecution agency are completely separated so that they have a relationship of mutual cooperation and check. “The Minister of Justice Chu Miae failed while trying to drive out Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol. There are people who say that the Moon Jae-in administration’s reform of the prosecution is over.” Not true. You have to look at the forest, not just the trees. In the Moon Jae-in administration’s reform of the prosecution, institutional reform is the key. The reform of the prosecution as an institutional reform has already produced considerable results.
First, the high-ranking officials criminal investigation office will be launched soon. Airborne is an agency that investigates crimes of high-ranking officials, but the purpose of a more important existence is to’check the prosecution’. The establishment of the airlift is a small crack in the current criminal justice system, where the prosecution has monopolized the right of investigation and prosecution. Even if the crack is small, the effect will be great. This is because the prosecution will no longer be able to’play’ as in the past through investigation and prosecution for the benefit of political power or the prosecution’s organization itself. Second, it is the adjustment of the right to investigate the speculum. With the revised Criminal Procedure Act and the Prosecutors’ Office Act in effect on January 1 of this year, major changes in the criminal justice system are under way. The prosecution’s right to conduct investigations against the police has been abolished. The prosecution and police are now mutually cooperative. The police had the right to terminate the investigation. Crimes that can be directly investigated by the prosecution were limited to crimes of corruption, economy, public officials, elections, defense projects, and major disasters, and crimes of police officials. In line with this trend, the prosecution’s own reforms are also taking place. With the exception of Seoul, Daegu, and Gwangju, the special departments of the National Prosecutors’ Office have been abolished. The department in charge of direct investigations has disappeared, and the criminal and court departments are strengthening. We prevented public summons of persons involved in the case with the prosecution. This is to prevent so-called public opinion trials. Late-night investigations were also abolished. The people do not feel this change well. Why? This is because most ordinary people don’t have much to go to the prosecutor’s office or the police station. However, the change in the criminal justice system centered on the reform of the prosecution has already begun, and it seems that no one can reverse the flow. The background of the Moon Jae-in administration’s achievements in the prosecution reform was heavily influenced by the experience of the failure of the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administration’s prosecution reform. I looked up the record. I’ll quote it shortly.
President Kim Dae-jung’s remarks at the reception of a business report from the Ministry of Justice in April 1998
In the past, prosecutors were ruled by power and conducted many targeted investigations according to the purpose of the power. I know because I’ve been hit. During the 1989 yonggong operation, in connection with the smuggling North Korean incident, the prosecution made a false confession that he gave Mr. Seo Gyeong-won not to sleep for three days and even tortured him, giving me 10,000 dollars. Only when the prosecution stands right is the country right. This is what I really want to say. To be clear, this regime will clear up personnel affairs regardless of academic relations or delays, and will not ask for the exercise of prosecution power for power.
President Kim Dae-jung’s assessment of the arrest of two sons of Kim Hong-up and Kim Hong-geol by the prosecution at the end of the term
At the time, the prosecutors, who were convinced of the regime change, aimed at a dagger toward’losing power’. The target was the president’s son and Hong-eop. 580 people around Hong-eop were surveyed. Among them, he pointed to an old friend and charged Hong-eup’s involvement in corruption. He confiscated the company and forced him to confess to reveal his personal life. Unable to withstand the threats, the son’s friend admitted to the charges as requested by the prosecution. After being released from prison, a friend suffered from guilt and apologized to his son. And two days before his death in February 2008, he left a transcript of his will, saying, “All statements made to the prosecution were false.” The youngest son, Hong-geol, trusted and followed people so easily. While studying in the United States for a long time, I did not know the domestic situation well, and I opened my mind without doubt about the businessmen who approached him. I was told to be careful all the time, knowing about the ‘mature faith’ of such a youngest person, but I couldn’t stop it. Everything came from my virtues.
I take pride in ensuring the prosecution’s neutrality. I think it is right to do so for national development. However, the expectation that the prosecution would not give up its undue privileges was not satisfied if the president guaranteed the prosecution’s political independence. The prosecution did not do that. It’s a shame. (Omitted) I really regret that I couldn’t push for the adjustment of the inspection authority and the establishment of the airlift. It was foolish to try to ensure political neutrality of the prosecution without reforming the system. I think the insults and persecutions I and my comrades suffered at the prosecution after retirement are the price for such foolishness.
At that time, the president and we saw the starting point of the prosecution reform as the prosecution’s political neutrality. In other words, he saw that breaking away from the’political prosecution’ is the key to reform. In fact, rather than a matter of the system, this goal was viewed as a “cultural matter” in which the political power self-controlled the desire to use the prosecution for the purpose of the regime, and the prosecutors themselves escaped from the government’s gaze. They quickly went back to the past. It is absurd and regrettable that the Lee Myung-bak administration has regressed at once. It wasn’t just unfortunate. President Roh, who did not try to take control of the prosecution but tried to ensure political neutrality and independence, was investigated for political purposes by the prosecution, so I wonder if there is anything else like this in the world.
In the prosecution reform process of the participatory government, there were thoughts of decentralization of prosecution powers, checks and surveillance, but it was not clear. The Presidential Transition Committee did not clearly recognize the task of decentralizing the prosecution’s powers. The reform task of decentralization of prosecutors’ powers is expressed through the adjustment of the government and prosecutors’ authority. These two tasks were presented by the Transition Committee as tasks for the expulsion of corruption and reform of the prosecution, but they did not clearly recognize the nature of the backbone of the prosecution reform, that is, the check and monitoring system of the prosecution authority.
President Moon Jae-in’s thoughts on the reform of the prosecution -I think all the people will strongly demand reorganization of power. With regard to the reform of the prosecution, what you can do right now before strengthening decentralization is to adjust the powers that are too concentrated on the prosecution by law. Because of its concentrated authority, it became a’unspoken prosecutor’, and a political prosecutor who looked at the powers also appeared. The fastest reform is to separate the power of investigation and the right of prosecution that the prosecution currently has, so that the right to investigate is to the police and the right to prosecute to the prosecution. -Didn’t you do that during the last participatory government? = Yes. It is one of the tasks that we have tried to do but have not been able to achieve. (Omitted) But now, the people also know that it is only possible to investigate the prosecution’s corruption, wrongdoing, or illegality. Now that the prosecution has all of them, they do not properly investigate their faults or mischief and solve them by bending their arms inward. Even after the investigative authority goes to the police, I think it will take some time for the police to properly investigate the prosecution. Until that’s all right, there’s a temporary need for an organization for high-ranking officials to be investigated.
In the end, the core of the prosecution reform that President Moon Jae-in thinks can be condensed as “the prosecution’s right to investigate and prosecute is completely separated, but until then, a temporary airlift is needed.” While President Moon Jae-in’s pledge to reform the prosecution in 2017 is a failure of the Roh Moo-hyun administration of Kim Dae-jung, it can be said that it is the result of enriched experiences that the teacher and President Moon Jae-in experienced as chief civilian and secretary at the Blue House.
* Establishment of an investigation center for corruption of high-ranking public officials and adjustment of the power of prosecution and light-investigation. Adjustment of prosecutors’ and light-investigative powers to ensure that the principle of police checks and balances works properly-In principle, the prosecution has the right to prosecute as well as secondary and supplementary investigations to maintain prosecution and prosecution.
Among President Moon Jae-in’s pledges to reform the prosecution, some of the establishment of airlifts and the adjustment of prosecutors’ rights were legislated in 2019 after an expedited process (fast track) in the National Assembly. These are the revised Criminal Procedure Act and the Prosecutors’ Office Act that came into effect on January 1. It means that President Moon Jae-in has kept’half’ of the prosecution reform pledge. What remains now is the complete separation of the right to investigate and the right to prosecute. Can President Moon Jae-in keep his pledge to completely separate the right to prosecute the power of investigation within his term of office? It doesn’t seem easy in reality. President Moon Jae-in’s term of office is until May 2022. Now is the time to strive for the stabilization of the newly implemented optometrist adjustment plan. Don’t be too in a hurry. What should I do? In addition, the Democratic Party’s representative Lee Nak-yeon and Yoon Ho-joong, the chairman of the Special Committee on Prosecution Reform, declared a’roadmap’ method. It is not going to be implemented right now, but it is going to pass in advance by the National Assembly in February with the revision of the Criminal Procedure Act and the Prosecutors’ Office Act, which will completely separate the right of investigation and prosecution. It is a strong will to impose a period of complete separation of the right to prosecute the right of investigation. Can you succeed? There are two challenges. First, what would the prosecutors who are the parties think about the complete separation of the right to prosecute the right of investigation? If the backlash from the parties is too strong, it will not be easy to push for reform. At the Dong-A-Democratic Party’s Special Committee on Prosecutors’ Reform on January 12, Vice Minister of Justice Yong-gu Lee shared the atmosphere inside the prosecution about reducing the prosecution’s direct investigation. The meeting was open to reporters.
Now prosecutors have not come into the prosecution for judicial control. I came to the prosecution to investigate. That is the reality. It is not a simple matter to ask prosecutors who came to investigate one day,’Do not investigate from now on.’ I am wondering whether to make the transition through education or in a way that improves the organizational culture while planting a different identity.
In simple terms, it’s hard to tell people who have been prosecutors’to beat the villain’ to go to trial. It makes sense. Most of the prosecutors I know are people with a very strong sense of justice. Telling the prosecutor not to investigate is perhaps the same as saying not to do the prosecution. Second, it is public opinion. Sudden prohibition of the prosecution’s direct investigation can lead to backlash, saying, “Who beats the villain?” In fact, it’s not something anyone can do to smack’poor.’ It is true that prosecutors armed with advanced investigative skills and legal knowledge have contributed to eradicating the evils of our society. If it’s not the prosecutors, who the hell can beat the evil? There are many people who believe that the Korean police have not yet been able to fight evil. So how do we solve this difficult problem? Among the candidates for the 2017 presidential election, Barun Party candidate Yoo Seung-min offered an answer to this. Candidate Seung-min Yoo’s promise is as follows.
* Separation of the right of investigation and the right of prosecution by the establishment of the investigation office-The third agency, the investigation office, is responsible for the investigation by separating the prosecution’s right to investigate and the right to prosecute-The investigation office consists of a prosecutor (prosecutor and prosecutor investigator) and an investigation police
It is a proposal to create an investigation office with prosecutors and investigators who are currently in charge of investigation by the prosecution and the police. Investigation is handled by the investigative agency and prosecution is undertaken by the prosecution. This will allow prosecutors who currently belong to the prosecution to move to the investigative office and choose whether to engage in a war on evil, or remain at the prosecutor’s office to focus on judicial control work. I think this is the most suitable for reality. I’ll finish. Do you think that if the opposition party wins in the 2022 presidential election, the Moon Jae-in administration’s achievements in prosecution reform will be in vain? It won’t. Even if the opposition party comes to power, the prosecution cannot go back to the past. There are two reasons. First, it is because the Moon Jae-in administration’s reform of the prosecution was centered on institutional reform. The law is made by the National Assembly. Even if the president changes, the president cannot freely change laws such as the Criminal Procedure Act, the Prosecutors’ Office Act, and the Airlift Act. Second, the opposition parties are also beginning to recognize how dangerous the omnipotent prosecution is. When meeting members of the People’s Power individually, there are people who say, “We are also very afraid of the powerful prosecution, but the Moon Jae-in administration is grateful that the government has reduced its strength.” According to the Prosecutors’ Office Act, prosecutors are representatives of the public interest. I sincerely hope that through the prosecution reform, prosecutors will be able to clear the stigma of being a handmaiden of power and a monster with omnipotent authority and be reborn as representatives of the true public interest. Senior Reporter Seong Han-yong [email protected]