Justice Minister Jeong Sung-ho on Abolishing Supplementary Investigation Rights: "We Must Ensure Not Even 1% of Victims Are Wronged"

Justice Minister Jeong Sung-ho emphasized on the 15th regarding the discussion on abolishing the prosecution's supplementary investigation rights, stating, "It is important to ensure that not even 1% of victims are wronged."

Minister Jeong gave this response during a plenary session of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee after Representative Park Eun-jung of the Rebuilding Korea Party pointed out that the prosecution had engaged in "protecting its own" during past investigations, such as the "villa sex bribery scandal" involving former Vice Justice Minister Kim Hak-ui.

"Past cases like the Kim Hak-ui incident were shameful events involving prosecutors," Minister Jeong said. "I am well aware that at the time, political power and the prosecution colluded to protect their own, covered up the cases, and suppressed the pleas of the victims."

He continued, "As a result, prosecutorial reform was pursued starting from the Moon Jae-in administration, but it ended incompletely, leaving some special cases under the prosecution's investigative scope. After the administration changed, the prosecution's investigative powers were fully revived, leading to various aftereffects."

However, Minister Jeong emphasized that once the Prosecutors' Office is reorganized into a Public Prosecution Service and its authority to initiate investigations is completely removed, the problems of prosecutorial abuse of power like those in the past will not occur.

"If we proceed with the premise of abolishing supplementary investigation rights, we must be more thorough to ensure that not even 1% of victims are wronged," he urged. "Please design the system in detail so that the rights of victims can be guaranteed to the maximum extent by screening the police's handling of cases."

Minister Jeong also argued for the necessity of a system where the prosecution receives and reviews all cases investigated by the police, emphasizing, "The very fact that the prosecution can review cases again will be enough to control arbitrary investigations by the police."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
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