Supreme Court Rules Prosecutor Cannot Indict Case Initiated by Investigators Under Their Command

The Supreme Court has delivered its first ruling stating that when a prosecution investigator initiates an investigation under a prosecutor's direction, the prosecutor is considered to have initiated the investigation, making it unlawful for the same prosecutor to directly indict the suspect.

The Supreme Court's Third Division, presided over by Justice Lee Sook-yeon, announced that it has overturned a lower court ruling that convicted a former public official, identified as A, on charges including bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Crimes, and remanded the case back to the Daegu High Court.

A, formerly a local government official, received 68 million won in 2016 from individuals related to a private park development project under the guise of design service fees in exchange for selecting them as the preferred bidder.

After an accusation against A was filed with the Daegu District Prosecutor's Office in 2022, a prosecution investigator launched an investigation under the direction of Prosecutor B and transferred the case to Prosecutor C in August 2024.

While investigating the case, the prosecution investigator discovered another bribery allegation against A.

The new allegation involved A having two of his children falsely employed by a company that supplies walking mats for hiking trails, receiving approximately 83 million won in wages from the company representative between 2021 and 2023.

After conducting an investigation into this additional matter as well, the prosecution investigator handed the case over to Prosecutor C, who had received the transfer of the previous case, and the prosecutor additionally indicted A.

The first and second instance courts deemed the prosecutor's indictment lawful and sentenced A to eight years in prison and a fine of 200 million won.

The first instance court viewed the separate bribery charges discovered by the prosecution investigator during the investigation as crimes initiated by a prosecution investigator performing the duties of a judicial police officer.

The second instance court also found no issues with this lower court judgment and upheld A's sentence.

Article 4, Paragraph 2 of the Prosecutors' Office Act stipulates that a prosecutor cannot indict a crime for which they have initiated the investigation themselves, with crimes transferred by judicial police officers serving as an exception.

The Supreme Court reached a different conclusion.

The Supreme Court interpreted the term "initiation of investigation" under Article 4, Paragraph 2 of the Prosecutors' Office Act as referring to cases where a prosecutor initiates the initial investigation into a crime and handles the primary investigation.

It also pointed out that prosecution investigators merely assist investigations under a prosecutor's direction and do not possess independent investigative authority like judicial police officers.

This means that even if a prosecution investigator launched an investigation, if it was conducted under a prosecutor's direction, it must be considered as an investigation initiated by the prosecutor.

Accordingly, the court ruled that it is unlawful for the prosecutor who directed the prosecution investigator's investigation to receive the transferred case and directly indict the suspect, constituting grounds for dismissing the indictment.

The Supreme Court stated, "For cases discovered during the course of an investigation, if the prosecution investigator initiated the investigation but it was carried out under the prosecutor's investigative direction, it must be deemed that the prosecutor initiated the investigation," adding, "Even if the prosecution investigator investigated the crime and transferred it to the prosecutor, it does not fall under 'crimes transferred by judicial police officers' as stipulated in Article 4, Paragraph 2 of the Prosecutors' Office Act."

Considering the indictment regarding A's additionally discovered bribery charges during the investigation as grounds for reversal, and taking into account that a single consolidated sentence had been imposed for all charges, the Supreme Court reversed the entire lower court judgment.

This ruling marks the first time the Supreme Court has clarified that an investigation initiated by a prosecution investigator under a prosecutor's direction also falls under crimes for which the prosecutor initiated the investigation.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.