Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon. [Yonhap]
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon. [Yonhap]

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said Thursday that the Democratic Party's obsession with stripping prosecutors of their supplementary investigation powers would end in harm to ordinary citizens, and called on the president to step in and stop it.

Oh made the remarks on his Facebook page, opposing the tabling of a Criminal Procedure Act amendment that would abolish prosecutors' right to conduct supplementary investigations. The bill is expected to be referred to the first legislative review subcommittee for deliberation on Friday.

"What the people want is simple," Oh wrote. "A country where crimes are properly uncovered, victims are protected to the end, and no one is wrongfully harmed — that is why a justice system exists." He went on to say that the Democratic Party was now moving to abolish that minimum safeguard — prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority — and asked whether South Korea's Criminal Procedure Act had become "a subcontracted piece of legislation to be hastily rewritten on the schedule of a particular political party."

Oh said recent cases — including the murder of a high school girl in Gwangju and a bribery case involving a former Donghae mayor — had initial investigative shortcomings, but that prosecutorial follow-up investigations had allowed the truth to emerge. "Police and prosecutors are human, so mistakes and misjudgments can happen," he said. "Just as you cannot entrust yourself to an operating room with only one surgeon, the justice system must have cross-checks. Oversight is what corrects errors and prevents wrongful harm."

"If this minimum safeguard collapses, the damage will fall squarely on the lives of ordinary citizens," Oh said. He said that leaving prosecutors with only a non-binding request power — rather than a genuine investigative right — would allow prosecutors and police to engage in what he called "legal ping-pong," tossing paperwork back and forth while evading responsibility. "During those months of investigative vacuum, criminals will have legally shielded time to swap phones and destroy evidence," he added.

Oh said the Democratic Party had already "started the countdown to legislative runaway" by unilaterally tabling the amendment in the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee. "A justice system directly tied to people's lives must not be reduced to a campaign product for a particular party's convention," he wrote.

He urged the president to use every constitutional tool available to apply the brakes if the push continued. "If the Democratic Party forces the bill through a plenary session vote, I strongly urge the president to immediately prepare to exercise the right to request reconsideration," he said.


cook@heraldcorp.com