Should citizens decide indictments? Debate over abolishing prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers reaches a new extreme

By Choi Eui-jong, The Herald Business

Amid the government's move to make abolishing prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers its baseline position on prosecution reform, hard-liners in the ruling camp have introduced follow-up legislation that would hand indictment decisions on major cases to citizen review panels drawn from local communities. As concerns mount that abolishing supplementary investigation powers would leave socially vulnerable crime victims even more exposed, critics are now warning that indictment decisions themselves could become susceptible to political bias.

Since Prime Minister Kim Min-seok's briefing cemented the abolition of supplementary investigation powers as the government's official stance, criticism from the legal community has grown sharper. The pushback has spread beyond prosecutors directly affected by the change to lawyers with extensive experience representing crime victims — a reflection of how the government, by passing the issue to the National Assembly, has in effect allowed the ruling camp's drive toward abolition to proceed without further debate.

Yang Hong-seok, an attorney at law firm Igong, said that if the abolition goes through, "investigations will be significantly delayed at a basic level," adding that "in terms of investigative completeness, capable police officers will do well, but even given the same amount of time, less capable ones will find it hard to guarantee the same results."

Lawyers argue that supplementary investigation powers are necessary not merely to compensate for shortcomings in primary investigative agencies, but to prevent case-processing delays and ensure completeness. They point in particular to the frequency with which supplementary investigations have uncovered the truth in cases involving children, people with disabilities, and other socially vulnerable groups who are especially susceptible to crime. One such case is the so-called "Haedeuni case," which sparked public outrage over the death of a child from abuse.

The first criminal division of the Suncheon Branch of Gwangju District Court sentenced a woman in her 30s, identified as A, to life imprisonment in April on charges including violation of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Child Abuse Crimes (child abuse homicide). A man in his 30s, identified as B, received a four-year-six-month prison term on charges including violation of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (retaliatory intimidation).

The case began in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, when police arrested A — the biological mother — on an emergency basis on Oct. 22 last year after four-month-old infant Haedeuni (a pseudonym) was found to have suffered abuse. Haedeuni died in hospital four days after A's arrest. On Oct. 31, police classified A as a negligent offender and referred her to prosecutors on charges of child abuse resulting in death.

The Suncheon Branch of Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office then turned its attention to a home security camera. Reasoning that a four-month-old infant would likely have been monitored by one, prosecutors conducted their own supplementary investigation, reviewing approximately 4,800 video and audio files from 12 days of footage. They said they confirmed that A had subjected the infant to severe physical abuse on a regular basis and that the child had died from physical injuries caused by external force inconsistent with a simple drowning accident.

Prosecutors determined that A had not killed Haedeuni through negligence but with intent, applied the charge of child abuse homicide, and referred the case to trial. They also uncovered evidence that B, the biological father — who had not been charged during the police investigation — had repeatedly witnessed the abuse and allowed it to continue, and had intimidated key witnesses on multiple occasions, and referred him to trial as well.

Jeonse fraud cases — directly tied to housing concerns that weigh heavily on young people — have also been resolved through prosecutors' supplementary investigations. The Eastern Branch of Busan District Prosecutors' Office requested a reinvestigation into an organized jeonse fraud ring after police declined to refer the case, finding no grounds for charges. When police maintained their decision, prosecutors conducted their own supplementary investigation and indicted five gang members on charges of joining and participating in a criminal organization — offenses that had not been investigated at the police stage.

Sexual violence cases, too, are frequently resolved through supplementary investigations. On June 26 — the day after Prime Minister Kim's briefing — the Korea Sexual Violence Counseling Center Association issued a statement saying that "prosecution reform must not become a regression for sexual violence victims," and that "victims' right to challenge unjust outcomes must be preserved under any circumstances."

Against this backdrop, the controversy is deepening after hard-liners in the ruling camp included in their follow-up prosecution reform bill a provision that would transfer some of prosecutors' indictment authority to citizen review panels composed of local residents. Because the bill was introduced with the participation of lawmakers from the Democratic Party of Korea — the ruling party — as well as others aligned with the ruling camp, it is all but certain to feature prominently in future legislative discussions.

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Yong-min and Rebuilding Korea Party lawmaker Park Eun-jeong jointly introduced an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act on June 26. Article 246, Paragraph 3 of the bill calls for the establishment of a prosecution review panel — known in Korean as a "gongsimhoe" — at each district court to deliberate on and decide whether a prosecutor's decision to indict is appropriate, with the panel's ruling determining whether charges are filed. The panels would be formed by randomly selecting up to 100 candidate members from the resident registration records of citizens aged 20 or older living within the court's jurisdiction, with nine deliberating members chosen from that pool.

The concern is that panels composed of residents within a given jurisdiction could reflect regional bias — and potentially political bias as well. Critics also point to the fundamental problem that ordinary citizens, from the perspective of the parties involved in a case, may find it unreasonable to have laypeople decide whether charges should be filed.

Kim Ye-won, a lawyer and head of the Disability Rights Law Center, said that "a structure must be created in which agencies cooperate in good faith — for instance, having an internal investigative supervisor step in when the officer or investigator in charge lacks the capacity." On the citizen review panel provision, she said: "It goes against common sense for unrelated people who cannot read criminal case files to contest whether charges should be filed."