"Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act must be revised to ensure checks and balances among investigative bodies"...investigative agencies speak with one voice

[Financial News] The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) and the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) have voiced concern that the investigative powers of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency, which is expected to be launched in October, are excessive and could disrupt checks and balances among investigative bodies. Some observers also warn that the Commissioner of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency’s authority to demand the transfer of cases could revive "prosecution-style investigations" and thereby undermine the purpose of "prosecution reform."
According to the legal community on the 4th, the CIO submitted its opinion on the government’s draft Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) late last month. This followed MOIS’s request that the CIO review and comment on the bill.
The CIO pointed out that, while the bill authorizes judicial police officers of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency to investigate prosecutors of the Public Prosecution Office, CIO prosecutors, and judicial police officers of the KNPA, it does not clearly specify in any statute which body is responsible for investigating judicial police officers of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency itself. The CIO therefore suggested amending the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials Act (CIO Act) and the Korean National Police Agency Act to state that CIO will investigate Serious Crime Investigation Agency officials of grade 3 and above, while the KNPA will investigate those of grade 4 and below.
The CIO is also reported to have expressed concern about the Serious Crime Investigation Agency’s priority investigative authority over "serious crimes." In particular, it argued that the CIO should be excluded from the obligation to notify the Commissioner of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency when another investigative body initiates an investigation into a "serious crime" (the so-called crime-detection notification system).
In this context, "serious crimes" include: (1) corruption crimes such as bribery, money laundering, rebates, and fraud involving state funds; (2) economic crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, breach of trust, tax evasion, cartel conduct, stock price manipulation, and technology leakage; (3) public officials’ crimes such as dereliction of duty, abuse of authority, falsification of official documents, and disclosure of official secrets; (4) election crimes such as spreading false information, vote buying, and interference with voters’ freedom; (5) defense procurement crimes such as technology leakage related to defense projects, bribery, and breach of trust; (6) large-scale disaster crimes such as occupational manslaughter and violations of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act; (7) drug crimes including all smuggling offenses and possession or sale above a certain scale; (8) national security crimes such as insurrection, aiding the enemy, and espionage; and (9) cybercrimes such as hacking, personal data breaches, and distribution of child sexual exploitation materials in cyberspace.
The Korean National Police Agency likewise raised concerns about the Serious Crime Investigation Agency’s priority investigative authority. According to materials from Kwon Chil-seung, a member of the National Assembly Security and Public Administration Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, the KNPA warned that granting priority investigative authority to the new agency could delay investigations that require swift action. The KNPA was particularly worried that, because serious crimes overlap with its own investigative remit, considerable time would be consumed determining whether a given case falls under its jurisdiction or that of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency.
At a press briefing on the 2nd, Acting Commissioner General Jaesung Yoo of the KNPA stated, "The scope of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency’s mandate is broadly defined to cover nine categories of crime, which excessively overlaps with the police," and added, "It will be difficult to know which agency has jurisdiction over which crimes, and I believe this could cause confusion and inconvenience for the public."
Behind the calls from investigative bodies to limit the investigative authority over judicial police officers at the Serious Crime Investigation Agency—such as investigative magistrates and specialized investigators—and to abolish the agency’s priority investigative authority lies the argument that checks and balances among investigative institutions are essential. A CIO official explained, "If the government’s bill is enacted as is, the lack of a specific legal basis for bodies such as the CIO to investigate corruption by officials of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency could give rise to unnecessary problems in the future."
Given that the stated rationale for establishing the Serious Crime Investigation Agency is to prevent abuses of investigative power—such as the prosecution service’s use of special investigation units—through checks and balances among investigative bodies, many argue that revising the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act is unavoidable. A lawyer who previously served as a deputy chief prosecutor noted, "In the end, prosecution reform was driven by the emergence of 'political prosecutors,' as special investigation prosecutors pursued politically sensitive, high-profile cases in an overreaching manner," and added, "We need mechanisms to prevent investigative bodies from abusing their investigative powers."
A lawyer who formerly headed an investigations division at a local police station commented, "The authority to demand the transfer of cases, and the crime-detection notification system designed to make that possible, can only be seen as an attempt to conduct ex officio investigations just like the prosecution service," and continued, "To dispel such concerns, it seems inevitable that the bill will have to be revised."

kyu0705@fnnews.com Kim Dong-gyu Reporter