Greater responsibility for coercive investigations comes with unresolved staffing and legal support gaps

Expanded training planned, but frequent job rotations limit expertise

The Ministry of Employment and Labor pursues employers who have fled after failing to pay wages, executing arrest warrants against those who absconded. [Ministry of Employment and Labor]
The Ministry of Employment and Labor pursues employers who have fled after failing to pay wages, executing arrest warrants against those who absconded. [Ministry of Employment and Labor]

Labor inspectors — an organization already short more than a quarter of its authorized headcount — must now conduct investigations without prosecutorial oversight. As they probe wage theft and industrial accidents, they bear greater responsibility for judging when searches, seizures, arrests and detentions are warranted and whether evidence is sufficient. Experts say the system needs dedicated investigative staff, expanded training and a standing legal support framework.

According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, as of last July the labor inspectorate had 3,725 personnel against an authorized strength of 5,131 — a shortfall of 1,406, or 27.4 percent of the total. Only 17 inspectors held qualifications as lawyers or labor attorneys.

Against that backdrop, prosecutorial oversight of special judicial police was abolished Oct. 2. The relationship between labor inspectors and other special judicial police on one side and prosecutors on the other shifted from command and obedience to mutual cooperation and guidance. Under the old system, prosecutors issued specific directions on the course and methods of individual investigations, which special judicial police were in principle required to follow.

The special judicial police regime grants limited investigative authority to civil servants in specialized fields — labor, food safety, tariffs, finance and others — so that their domain expertise can be applied to investigations. As of last year, 20,419 officers had been designated: 14,359 across 35 central government agencies and 6,060 across 17 local governments.

Prosecutorial oversight had also served to compensate for special judicial police officers' limited investigative experience and legal expertise. Last year, prosecutors issued 46,726 oversight directives to special judicial police. The most common subjects were evidence supplementation, coercive measures such as searches, seizures, arrests and detentions, and determinations of intent — all judgments that require weighing the facts, evidence and applicable law in each case.

Yet investigative experience within the special judicial police has not accumulated sufficiently. A 2023 study by the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice found that roughly 80 percent of special judicial police officers had fewer than three years of investigative experience. While the figures were not specific to labor inspectors, they illustrate the broader need to strengthen investigative capacity across the special judicial police. Frequent job rotations and the concurrent handling of administrative duties are cited as the main obstacles to building that experience.

With greater investigative responsibility now resting on frontline officers, two risks stand out: inadequate legal review and a chilling effect on investigations. Conducting coercive investigations without robust internal review mechanisms could lead to illegally obtained evidence or violations of fundamental rights. Conversely, the National Assembly Research Service has warned that officers may hesitate to pursue even necessary coercive measures out of fear of being held responsible for unlawful investigations or the exclusion of evidence.

How much relief prosecutors' guidance and advice — the replacement for direct oversight — will provide is also an open question. Unlike the old oversight directives, guidance and advice carry no direct binding force. Special judicial police are nonetheless expected to respect such input and incorporate it into their investigations; if they do not, they must explain their reasons in writing when referring a case. Prosecutors who find that an officer failed to comply without justification may demand supplementary investigation and, in certain circumstances, corrective action.

The boundary between legal support and investigative involvement also needs to be clearly defined. Special judicial police need concrete guidance, but the more specific prosecutors make their advice, the more it risks becoming oversight in effect — a burden prosecutors will be aware of. The National Assembly Research Service noted that, unlike the old system in which oversight was both a prosecutorial power and a duty, it is uncertain whether prosecutors will have sufficient incentive to provide active guidance under the new framework.

Training to shore up investigative capacity will be expanded. The Legal Research and Training Institute plans to increase special judicial police training from 20 sessions and 1,000 participants per year to 75 sessions and 5,100 participants. The Seoul Metropolitan Government is also discussing expanding what had been a two-to-three-day program into a two-to-four-week hands-on training course.

Training alone, however, cannot fully support the legal and evidentiary judgments required in individual cases.

The applicable laws, types of offenses and investigative methods differ across fields such as labor, food safety, tariffs and finance, which limits the effectiveness of uniform training. Frequent job rotations also make it difficult to retain experienced staff and build institutional investigative knowledge. Personnel incentives for strengthening investigative capacity that had been included in the draft regulations for the new mutual cooperation framework were dropped from the final version.

The conditions for securing standing legal support also vary widely by agency. The Seoul Metropolitan Government is moving to establish a tentatively named special judicial police deliberation committee with a legal review function, hire two lawyers and operate an external expert advisory panel. Smaller local governments and agencies with fewer special judicial police officers, by contrast, will struggle to build their own support systems — which is why many local governments had requested the dispatch of prosecutors, the designation of dedicated prosecutors and expanded legal advisory services ahead of the abolition of prosecutorial oversight.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor has also put internal controls in place. It enacted investigative rules for labor inspectors, establishing an internal chain of command centered on regional office heads, and set up investigative review committees at headquarters and regional offices that include outside experts. Legal experts have noted, however, that the committees are grounded in investigative rules rather than statute and that their findings carry no binding force. Some observers argue that abolishing prosecutorial oversight could ultimately strengthen accountability in labor investigations.

Kim Hye-mi, a legislative researcher at the National Assembly Research Service, said the system should "expand dedicated investigative staff, designate specialist positions and set minimum assignment periods so that experienced personnel continue to handle investigative work." She added that "for smaller agencies that cannot build their own legal support systems, it is worth considering a shared support framework at the metropolitan government level."


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