[Anchor]
The latest amendment to the Criminal Procedure Act includes provisions to expand the grounds for a court to dismiss an indictment. During the Legislation and Judiciary Committee's subcommittee review, lawmakers stated that "tremendous changes in trials are expected," and requested the court on the 15th to study how trials would change and what supplementary measures were needed, and to report back. However, this review data was submitted to the National Assembly only today (the 31st), right before the bill was passed.
Ha Jeongyeon reports exclusively.
[Reporter]
At the 3rd meeting of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee's Bill Review Subcommittee on the 15th, the first discussions took place regarding the "expansion of grounds for court dismissal of indictments."
According to meeting minutes, Subcommittee Chairman Kim Seung-won of the Democratic Party stated regarding the grounds for dismissing indictments under the Criminal Procedure Act amendment, "Tremendous changes in trials are expected."
The Criminal Procedure Act amendment passed by the National Assembly today (the 31st) adds two new grounds for dismissing indictments to the existing ones: "indictment filed through serious illegal investigation" and "indictment filed in significant deviation of prosecutorial discretion."
During the subcommittee meeting, Representative Kim cited examples such as "the cancellation of trials based on tainted evidence," and mentioned, "It even opens the door to such outcomes."
He then asked Ki Woo-jong, Deputy Minister of Court Administration, to specifically study questions like "how trials will change and what is expected under these circumstances, and what areas need supplementation," requesting a review report by early next week.
SBS obtained the relevant document titled "Review on the Legislation of Abuse of Prosecution Authority," drafted by the National Court Administration, today.
It was confirmed that this document was submitted to the National Assembly at around 3:38 PM today—long past "early next week," which would have been around the 20th based on the 3rd subcommittee meeting.
This was merely an hour before the Criminal Procedure Act amendment passed the National Assembly.
The review data that was formally requested under the premise that "tremendous changes in trials are expected" ended up not being utilized in the bill review process.
According to the subcommittee meeting minutes, from the 3rd to the 9th subcommittee meetings where reviews took place, no lawmakers were found to have separately verified whether the data had been submitted.
The National Court Administration included cases where abuse of prosecution authority was recognized and not recognized in the data. Regarding the amendment, it attached a review opinion stating, "It can be viewed as embodying specific categorization by borrowing terms from precedents," while adding that "it is a matter to be decided through legislative policy by examining both the pros and cons resulting from the legal amendment."
Meanwhile, Representative Kim's side posted claims on social media yesterday distorting SBS's report on the National Assembly meeting minutes regarding the "addition of grounds for dismissing indictments" as "cherry-picked," but Representative Kim's remarks featured in the report were transcribed directly from the meeting minutes and are publicly available on the National Assembly website.
(Camera: Oh Young-chun | Video Editing: Park Sun-soo | Design: Kang Yoon-jung, Seo Seung-hyun)
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