Most cases closed by police without referral
More than 10,000 complaints have been filed with police in the six months since South Korea's "legal distortion" law took effect, the Korean National Police Agency said.
The agency said Friday that as of Saturday, police had received 1,002 cases involving 13,953 named suspects. Of those, 757 cases covering 11,716 suspects had been processed — a case-clearance rate of 75 percent. Police declined to refer 725 cases involving 11,648 suspects to prosecutors and transferred 32 cases covering 68 suspects to other agencies. Not a single case has been referred to prosecutors. The remaining 245 cases involving 2,237 suspects are still under investigation.
Among those named as suspects, police officers and coast guard personnel accounted for 3,971 people, or 28 percent of the total. Prosecutors followed at 961 (6 percent), judges at 734 (5 percent), special judicial police at 158 (1 percent) and prosecution investigators at 16 (0.1 percent). The remaining 8,113 people were found not to be subject to the law.
The legal distortion offense was added to Article 123-2 of the Criminal Act in March. It punishes judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officials who intentionally misapply the law or manipulate evidence to benefit or harm a specific individual. However, concerns have been raised that a flood of indiscriminate complaints since the law's enactment could have a chilling effect on investigations and trials.
arin@heraldcorp.com
