Prosecutor quota to be reviewed after new office launches

'Judicial control bureau' name flagged as inappropriate

Rename to 'non-referral case review bureau' under consideration

The prosecution service. [Yonhap]
The prosecution service. [Yonhap]

The Ministry of Justice is moving to reduce investigative staff and the number of prosecutors at the planned Public Prosecution Service, following President Lee Jae-myung's order to revise the agency's organizational structure. The ministry is also internally reviewing a name change for the controversial "judicial control bureau," with "non-referral case review bureau" emerging as the leading alternative.

According to Yonhap, the ministry is considering cutting the quota of investigators and administrative officers in investigative units by 50.2 percent — from 4,284 to 2,133 — under the draft organizational regulations for the Public Prosecution Service and its affiliated agencies.

As part of the transition to the new office, the ministry plans to reorganize prosecutors' investigators and narcotics investigators into a new "criminal justice officer" category, reducing their quota by 50.7 percent from 2,986 to 1,471.

Criminal justice officers, working within the Public Prosecution Service which will no longer hold investigative authority, will assist prosecutors with tasks such as coordinating with investigative agencies, verifying facts, and reviewing and analyzing case records.

The ministry said it intends to assign at least one criminal justice officer per prosecutor's office to carry out prosecutorial duties alongside prosecutors, in order to give practical effect to the authority to guide and advise special judicial police and to request supplementary investigations.

The ministry also plans to review the prosecutor quota after the Public Prosecution Service launches, following a workload analysis and an external research study.

The draft organizational plan the ministry put out for public comment on Thursday called for reducing the general staff quota from 8,414 to 6,120.

However, the prosecutor quota was left unchanged at 2,292, drawing criticism from within the ruling camp that the reform was backtracking. President Lee also weighed in Thursday, saying, "Why not just use as many people as are actually needed?" and ordered revisions.

Within the prosecution service, however, there are concerns about hastily cutting the prosecutor quota at a time when staff attrition is already accelerating. Officials have also raised the possibility that a backlog of unresolved cases could go unaddressed as a result.

The ministry estimates that about 130 of the current 251 prosecutors will leave, including roughly 90 expected to be appointed to the new Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and others planning to resign.

The current prosecutor quota has been frozen for 12 years since 2014. Because the quota is set by statute — the Prosecutors Quota Act — it cannot be adjusted quickly, and the ministry has traditionally maintained a vacancy rate of around 10 percent, unlike other general civil service positions, to account for leave and secondments.

General administrative and trial-support staff unrelated to investigations will be kept at roughly the current level of 3,583, up slightly from 3,580.

The ministry noted that 99 percent of existing prosecutors offices' workload had consisted of handling cases referred by primary investigative agencies, and argued that separating investigation from prosecution would therefore not significantly change the overall volume of work.

The ministry is also reviewing a name change for the "judicial control bureau," after President Lee recently said the current name was unnecessarily contentious and inappropriate.

The bureau reviews investigation records that police closed without referral — such as cases cleared without charges — to check for concealment or shoddy investigations and to decide whether to demand a reinvestigation.

Hard-line prosecution-reform lawmakers within the ruling camp have pushed back against the bureau, arguing it could serve as a backdoor to neutralize the removal of prosecutors' investigative powers.


20ki@heraldcorp.com