President Lee orders deletion of clause on directing special judicial police officers: "Unnecessary excesses must be avoided"

[The Financial News] President Lee Jae-myung of South Korea stressed on the 17th, in relation to prosecution reform, that "for whatever reason, unnecessary excesses that hinder reform must be avoided."
President Lee Jae-myung wrote on X (formerly Twitter) the same day, "The separation of investigation and indictment, and the exclusion of investigations by the prosecution service, will be firmly pursued as a clear national policy priority."
A day earlier, President Lee had already commented on demands from some hardliners within the Democratic Party of Korea to revise the Government of the Republic of Korea's prosecution reform proposal. He said there was no need to "give entrenched vested interests, which should be dismantled, a justification for counterattack and an opportunity to regroup because of excessive competition over who appears more hardline or because of measures that are not urgent." This is being interpreted as his continued effort to "coordinate traffic" within the party.
President Lee stated, "If it is within the scope necessary to exclude investigations by the prosecution service, the party-government policy consultation proposal can be revised ten times over through further party-government policy consultations." He added, "I have instructed the Government of the Republic of Korea to delete from the party-government consultation proposal the clause granting command authority over special judicial police officers, as well as any provisions that could allow prosecutors to intervene in ongoing investigations."

cjk@fnnews.com Choi Jong-geun Reporter