Abolishing prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers is govt. position, PM says

Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said Thursday that the government has settled on abolishing prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers as its official position, a key sticking point in efforts to amend the Criminal Procedure Act as part of prosecutorial reform.

"Taking various opinions into account, we have finalized the abolition of supplementary investigation powers as the government's basic position," Kim said at a briefing at the Government Seoul Building. He added that the government had determined it would be "more efficient and appropriate" not to submit a separate government bill, in order to allow the National Assembly to deliberate freely.

Kim said the core principle driving the Lee Jae-myung administration's prosecutorial reform agenda is the separation of investigation and indictment. "This is the central principle of reform — to more rationally redefine prosecutorial authority and more robustly protect the fundamental rights of citizens," he said.

"In line with that principle, I have consistently maintained that prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers must be abolished," he said.

Kim said the government would convey its basic position to the ruling party and then defer to the Assembly's deliberations rather than put forward its own legislative proposal. "I concluded that it is more appropriate for the specific institutional design and legislation to be decided through sufficient discussion and deliberation in the National Assembly," he said.

He added that the government could, if needed, supply reference materials drawn from the various opinions it had gathered during the Assembly's deliberation process.

On the government's earlier bills to establish a public prosecution office and a serious crimes investigation agency, Kim said both the content and timing of the first legislative notice had been coordinated with the ruling party. He also said he had proposed to the party in May that the second reform bill — an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act — be processed ahead of the original party-government schedule, but that the party had asked to delay it.

The briefing was announced to the press three hours before it took place.

Kim is expected to return to Yeouido soon and formally announce a bid for the party leadership at the August party convention. He appeared to have held the separate briefing with an eye on the possibility that the supplementary investigation powers issue could become a flashpoint at the convention.

Jung Chung-rae, a potential rival for the party leadership, posted on social media Thursday calling for the "full and immediate abolition of supplementary investigation powers," sending a clear signal to the party's hard-line base that favors bold reform.

Growing skepticism among some hard-line supporters of the Lee administration over its commitment to prosecutorial reform also appeared to factor into the briefing. The doubts followed a string of appointments of former prosecutors to senior posts, including senior presidential secretary for civil affairs and secretary for judicial affairs.

Some supporters had also criticized the advisory committee of the Prime Minister's Office-affiliated Prosecutorial Reform Task Force after it effectively concluded its activities on June 9 and publicly stated that prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers should be retained.

President Lee Jae-myung, for his part, addressed the issue at a press conference marking his first year in office, reaffirming his earlier position that supplementary investigation powers should be permitted in exceptional cases while saying he had "decided to leave the conclusion to the National Assembly."