6 in 10 South Koreans want Lee to veto bill stripping prosecutors of investigative powers

A new poll shows that six in 10 South Koreans want President Lee Jae Myung to veto a proposed amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act that would abolish prosecutors' supplementary investigative authority.

The Reform Party announced Monday that a survey conducted that day by its think tank, the Reform Research Institute, found that 59.6 percent of respondents — roughly six in 10 — said President Lee should veto the Criminal Procedure Act amendment. The poll surveyed 1,013 men and women aged 18 and older nationwide.

That figure was 25.6 percentage points higher than the 34.0 percent who said the bill should be promulgated without a veto — a gap outside the margin of error. Some 64.0 percent of respondents said the amendment would worsen conditions for criminal investigations.

By age group, support for a veto was highest among those aged 18 to 29 (67.9 percent) and those in their 30s (65.0 percent), both exceeding 60 percent. They were followed by respondents in their 60s (61.3 percent), 50s (57.8 percent), those aged 70 and older (54.7 percent) and those in their 40s (52.6 percent).

Asked about the impact of restructuring the investigative system — which would bar prosecutors from conducting supplementary investigations directly and limit them to requesting that police do so — 64.0 percent of respondents said criminal investigations would worsen. That was more than three times the 20.0 percent who said conditions would improve.

A cross-analysis of the two questions found that a large majority — 88.9 percent — of those who called for a veto also said investigative conditions would deteriorate.

Notably, even among respondents who said the bill should be promulgated as is, 24.3 percent said investigations would worsen. The Reform Research Institute interpreted this as reflecting "mixed views on investigative conditions even among those who support promulgating the bill."

Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok warned that "the National Assembly may have passed the bill, but the ultimate responsibility for failing to stop it falls on the president." He added that if Lee Jae Myung ignores the 59.6 percent of citizens calling for a veto, "he will be recorded in history as having signed a deterioration of the law."

The poll was conducted using an automated response system with random digit dialing of mobile numbers. It carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level, with a response rate of 3.54 percent.