Justice Minister Jeong Seong-ho on the 1st instructed prosecutors who have been acting in their roles for extended periods to “quickly return to their current affiliated prosecution offices.” It has been common for prosecutors who have handled major cases to continue participating in trials even after being assigned to different prosecution offices. The move reflects the stance of the Lee Jae-myung administration to minimize this practice under the principle of “separating investigation and indictment.”
The Ministry of Justice announced that Minister Jeong directed the operation of the acting duty system to reasonably harmonize the two values: the principle of “separating investigation and indictment” and “the exercise of prosecutorial power to safely protect the state and citizens from crime.” This is a follow-up to Minister Jeong’s directive on his first day in office on the 21st of last month to investigate the status of acting prosecutors and consider their return to original positions.
Minister Jeong stated that prosecutors who have been acting in their roles for extended periods should swiftly hand over criminal trial duties and return to their current affiliated prosecution offices. He also instructed that acting roles for one-day duties in prosecutions of other offices be limited to exceptional cases, such as serious public welfare crimes or areas requiring expertise. Exceptions for temporary acting appointments include situations when: ① witness examinations of victims with established trust relationships are needed in cases of sexual crimes, child abuse, and violent crimes, or when requested by the victims; ② in cases of multiple victim incidents like large-scale disasters to guarantee victims and bereaved families’ right to testify in court for their protection; ③ expert opinion statements are required on specialized legal issues such as technology, finance, securities, tax, or the Serious Accidents Punishment Act; ④ any other special circumstances similar to these.
Historically, it has been a common practice for investigating prosecutors transferred to different prosecution offices to participate in trials as acting prosecutors. The prosecution generally believed that acting appointments were unavoidable in large cases with prolonged investigations and trials due to frequent reassignments every 1-2 years. Continuously changing prosecutors in complex cases could delay understanding the case content and complicate maintaining the prosecution.
Courts have not typically seen this prosecutorial practice as problematic. However, on November 10 last year, the Suwon District Court Seongnam Branch Criminal Division 1 (Presiding Judge Heo Yong-gu) ordered Chief Prosecutor Jeong, who was handling the Seongnam FC sponsorship allegation involving President Lee Jae-myung, to withdraw due to an acting appointment. Prosecutor Jeong had investigated and indicted the Seongnam FC case in September 2022 while serving at Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office Seongnam Branch. At the time of the trial, he was with Busan District Prosecutors’ Office while also working as an acting prosecutor at Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office. He participated in the trial with a one-day acting prosecutor appointment on trial days.
The Ministry of Justice stated, “We have separated investigation and trial stages to allow trial prosecutors to maintain objectivity, avoiding confirmation biases that may occur during investigations. We achieved the separation of investigation and indictment while ensuring no gaps in protecting the public from crime,” and added, “We will continue to realize the separation of investigation and indictment while working to maintain the prosecution’s crime-response capabilities.”