Junior prosecutors give cold shoulder to serious-crime agency's recruitment drive

Junior prosecutors are giving a cold reception to recruitment briefings being held across the country by the launch preparatory committee of the Serious Crime Investigation Agency, set to open in October. The prevailing mood — "there is no reason to attend the briefings" — has taken hold as word spread that prosecutors with fewer than 10 years of experience would face an effective demotion by moving to the agency, and that explanations of the organization's role and work direction have been vague.

The agency's launch preparatory committee began holding closed-door recruitment briefings at 18 prosecutors' offices nationwide on Wednesday, according to legal circles. Briefings held so far covered, on Wednesday, the Busan High and District Prosecutors' Offices, the Changwon District Prosecutors' Office and the Gwangju High and District Prosecutors' Offices; on Thursday, the Ulsan, Daegu High and District, Jeonju and Daejeon High and District Prosecutors' Offices; and on Friday, the Chuncheon, Seoul Eastern District, Cheongju and Suwon High and District Prosecutors' Offices. Next week, the schedule continues with the Uijeongbu, Seoul Northern District, Incheon and Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Offices on Monday; the Seoul High and Central District Prosecutors' Offices and Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office on Tuesday; and the Jeju District Prosecutors' Office on Wednesday.

At the offices where briefings were held this week, most attendees were prosecutors' investigators, with prosecutors themselves rarely showing up, sources said. Within and outside the prosecution service, there are growing indications that the briefings have failed to attract interest particularly from junior rank-and-file prosecutors. A prosecutor at one regional office where a briefing was held Wednesday said "a few senior planning prosecutors attended, but most rank-and-file prosecutors did not go."

Legal circles say the low turnout among junior prosecutors stems from a compensation package that fell short of what had been expected to be the key incentive for attracting them. A rank-and-file prosecutor with fewer than 10 years of experience currently holds Grade 3 status, but moving to the agency would make them a Grade 4 investigator — an effective demotion. The launch preparatory committee disclosed at a briefing Tuesday that prosecutors transferring to the agency would be assigned ranks as follows: district prosecutors' office chief-level as Grade 1; deputy and division chief prosecutor-level as Grade 2; prosecutors with 10 or more years of legal experience as Grade 3; and those with fewer than 10 years as Grade 4. The agency's organizational structure plan is open for public comment from Wednesday through Monday.

Critics also point out that even if a prosecutor with fewer than 10 years of experience moves to the agency as a Grade 4 investigator, the number of positions available for promotion is so limited that there is no meaningful career path. Under the plan, there are only 7 Grade 1 investigator slots (1 at headquarters, 6 at branch offices), 16 Grade 2 slots (8 and 8) and 30 Grade 3 slots (8 and 22) — a structure analysts say will inevitably create a promotion bottleneck. The number of Grade 4 investigators and below stands at 2,513 (315 at headquarters, 2,198 at branch offices). For junior prosecutors, joining the agency would mean accepting lower status than they currently hold, on top of having no guarantee of promotion.

Until the launch preparatory committee released the organizational plan, voices within and outside the prosecution service had suggested that attending the briefings was worthwhile even without committing to a transfer. Frontline prosecutors had long been lukewarm toward the agency's establishment, but a slightly different mood had begun to emerge. Some analysts suggested that the recent promulgation of an amended Code of Criminal Procedure — which entirely abolishes prosecutors' supplementary investigative powers — had made the future as a prosecutor at the new public prosecution office more uncertain, and that this uncertainty had begun to color perceptions of the agency as well.

As it became clear that rank-and-file prosecutors transferring to the agency would have to accept significant disadvantages, however, sentiment toward the briefings cooled sharply. "A prosecutor thinking about retirement might consider moving to build a career record at the agency, but for a junior rank-and-file prosecutor there seems to be no reason to go," a senior prosecution official said. "A situation where prosecutors around the 10-year mark are not joining the agency will make things even harder for an organization that needs to produce results immediately," the official added.

There are also complaints that the briefings have failed to clearly explain basic working conditions and the direction of work after joining the agency. A prosecutor at a Greater Seoul office where a briefing is scheduled next week said they did not plan to attend. "It seems the agency has not yet clearly defined what kind of work it will do, and I have heard that questions about personnel rotation, official housing and other working conditions are repeatedly met with the answer that nothing has been decided yet," the prosecutor said.