As prosecutors' office nears abolition, experts call for breaking police 'inbreeding'

With the abolition of the Prosecution Service on the horizon and a string of police misconduct cases coming to light, experts gathered Monday to debate ways to rein in what critics call an increasingly oversized police force.

Yoo Seung-ik, a law professor at Myongji University, proposed breaking up the insular culture within the police organization at a policy forum on democratic oversight of police and reform of police investigations, held Monday afternoon at the National Assembly Members' Office Building in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul.

"The powerlessness of the current National Police Commission, the leniency of internal police inspections, and the closed, inbred appointment practices at the top command are the core factors amplifying concerns about the abuse of police power and violations of human rights," Yoo said.

He added that governance must be urgently restructured to bring police power under democratic control and raise the transparency of public security administration.

Kang So-young, a professor of police administration at Konkuk University, said internal police oversight alone has clear limits in winning public trust. "There is a need to strengthen genuine external oversight and accountability over the expanded police powers, while still guaranteeing investigative independence and political neutrality," she said.

The forum focused particularly on ways to improve how the commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency and the chief of the National Investigation Headquarters are appointed.

Under current law, the commissioner general holds the rank of chief superintendent general and is appointed by the president. The appointment has consistently gone to one of the seven senior superintendents general — the rank directly below — making it, in effect, an internal promotion.

Participants said the commissioner general post should be opened to outside experts rather than being limited to internal promotions. They noted that the position is more closed off than those of the prosecutor general and the chief of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, both of which allow external candidates with at least 15 years of relevant experience.

Speakers also said the National Investigation Headquarters chief post should live up to its original design as an open-recruitment position. When the headquarters was established in 2021, the role was explicitly open to outside legal professionals — judges, prosecutors and lawyers with at least 10 years of experience. In practice, however, every chief to date has come from within the police. When current chief Hong Seok-gi was appointed, the agency did not even issue a public recruitment notice for the position.

Calls also emerged for a National Assembly confirmation hearing for the National Investigation Headquarters chief. Hwang Mun-gyu, a professor in the humanities and social sciences faculty at Jungbu University, said the Police Act already allows the Assembly to vote on an impeachment motion against the headquarters chief if the official violates the Constitution or laws in the course of their duties. "It is an asymmetric structure — the strongest form of after-the-fact control, impeachment, is in place, yet there is no prior vetting through a confirmation hearing," he said.

Kang also expressed support for introducing a confirmation hearing for the headquarters chief. "The verification at the appointment stage and ongoing accountability during the term need to be institutionalized together," she said.

Legislation to introduce such a hearing is already moving forward. Lee Sang-sik, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker and one of the forum's co-organizers, on Friday sponsored a package of three bills that would require the National Investigation Headquarters chief to undergo a National Assembly confirmation hearing.

Proposals were also put forward to give real teeth to the National Police Commission, the external oversight body for the police. Participants said the commission currently functions more like an advisory panel under the Ministry of Interior and Safety, leaving its independent oversight role severely limited.

"In actual operation, the National Police Commission is perceived as little more than an advisory committee under the Ministry of Interior and Safety, with no independent administrative authority or external rule-making power," Yoo said. "Lacking any enforcement capacity, it has become entrenched as a rubber stamp that simply ratifies agendas put forward by the Korean National Police Agency after the fact."

Participants proposed elevating the commission to a deliberative administrative body under the prime minister and giving its decisions binding force, transforming it into a genuine oversight institution.