PPP files bill to preserve prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers, delay launch of new agencies

The People Power Party said Wednesday it had filed a party-line amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act aimed at preserving prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers, pushing back against the Democratic Party of Korea's drive to abolish them.

Along with the Criminal Procedure Act amendment, the PPP submitted to the National Assembly's bill-receipt office a package of legislation dubbed the "three laws to protect crime victims," which includes a one-year delay — from October this year to October next year — in the launch of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and the Public Prosecution Office.

The party said the amendment would preserve prosecutors' supplementary investigation powers and explicitly define the scope of such investigations to cover crimes referred by police, cases forwarded by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, and crimes involving officials of investigative agencies. In addition, the bill significantly expands the range of cases that police must refer to prosecutors, as a check against police unilaterally closing cases.

Rep. Kwak Gyu-taek, chairman of the party's legal advisory committee, said prosecutors would be able not only to request supplementary investigations in referred cases but also to conduct them directly. "This does not restore the system of referring all cases, but it creates a referral scope comparable to full referral so that victims can receive adequate redress," he said.

The amendment also removes the statutory provision granting prosecutors the authority to withdraw indictments, preventing prosecutors from arbitrarily dropping charges or being subjected to undue pressure to do so. It also stipulates that for serious crimes, judicial police officers must notify prosecutors at the outset of an investigation so that prosecutors can be involved from the start, and that prosecutors and police must cooperate throughout.