Government Finalizes Bills to Establish Public Prosecution Office and Serious Crime Investigation Agency

[Financial News] The government has finalized its versions of the establishment bills for the Public Prosecution Office and the Serious Crime Investigation Agency, which will be created as the Prosecutors' Office is dismantled. By April, the government plans to begin work on amending the Criminal Procedure Act of the Republic of Korea to decide, among other things, whether to maintain supplementary investigative authority.
On the morning of the 3rd, the government announced that it held the 7th meeting of the State Council of South Korea at Government Complex Seoul, chaired by Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea Kim Min-seok, where it reviewed and approved the Public Prosecution Office Act Bill and the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency Act, thereby finalizing the government proposals.
The two establishment bills passed at the State Council of South Korea meeting are the same bills that the Pan-Government Task Force on Prosecution Reform re-notified for legislation on the 24th. In response to controversy over the earlier draft, the dual rank structure for investigators at the Serious Crime Investigation Agency was unified into a single "investigator" rank, and the agency's investigative scope was reduced from nine categories to six: corruption, economic crimes, defense industry crimes, narcotics, national security offenses such as insurrection and treason, and cybercrime.
Under the Public Prosecution Office Act Bill, prosecutors may now be dismissed through disciplinary action. Previously, unlike other public officials, prosecutors could be removed from office only if impeached or sentenced to imprisonment or a heavier punishment. The new bill allows the government to dismiss prosecutors through its own disciplinary procedures, without going through an impeachment process in the National Assembly or a court ruling.
As government-initiated legislation, the establishment bills for the Public Prosecution Office and the Serious Crime Investigation Agency will undergo a final promulgation process after they pass a plenary session of the National Assembly and are approved once more by the State Council of South Korea.
In addition, the government will launch work by April to amend the Criminal Procedure Act of the Republic of Korea to decide whether prosecutors at the Public Prosecution Office will retain supplementary investigative authority. It plans to examine what exceptional situations may require supplementary investigations and what institutional measures are needed to ensure that requests for supplementary investigation function effectively in practice.
kyu0705@fnnews.com Kim Dong-gyu Reporter