One Month Under Revised Criminal Procedure Act: Delayed Case Processing and Trial Confusion

[Anchor]

It has been one month since the implementation of the new Criminal Procedure Act, which abolished the Prosecutors' Office and established the Serious Crime Investigation Agency and the Prosecution Service. SBS examined how the new system is operating, and it has been confirmed that the problems anticipated prior to its implementation are actually manifesting.

Reporter Dong Eunyeong has the report.

[Reporter]

What exactly is an investigation?

While various answers can be given, from a legal perspective, an investigation refers to the collection of evidence to be used in criminal trials.

Therefore, the abolition of prosecutors' investigative powers, which is the core of the new Criminal Procedure Act, means that prosecutors are no longer allowed to collect evidence.

However, after one month of implementation, critics point out that problems have arisen precisely because of this point.

The issues can be condensed into three categories: delayed case processing, increased rejection of warrants, and confusion during the trial process.

First is the delay in case processing.

With the abolition of the Prosecutors' Office and the launch of the Prosecution Service, requests for supplementary investigations have surged.

Prosecutors who receive transferred cases from the police are unable to immediately decide whether to indict, leading to an increase in the number of times they request the police to conduct supplementary investigations.

For instance, in a situation where a prosecutor must decide whether to apply the crime of nighttime intrusion burglary, if information on the sunset time is missing from the case record, a prosecutor in the past would have checked the sunset time, added it to the record, and then indicted.

Now, however, even adding the sunset time is considered evidence collection, making it necessary to request a supplementary investigation.

This happens because even evidence that prosecutors would have directly collected in the past must now be secured through requests for supplementary investigations.

As a result, the number of supplementary investigation requests over the past month increased by more than 35% compared to the monthly average last year, inevitably delaying case processing.

An increase in warrant rejections is also appearing.

During the first month following the implementation of the new Criminal Procedure Act, cases where prosecutors rejected warrants requested by the police have increased, which is also seen as being because prosecutors cannot directly collect evidence and thus must ask the police for supplementation.

The trial process is also in chaos.

Previously, victims could submit evidence to trial prosecutors during the trial process, but the prevailing interpretation now is that prosecutors can no longer accept such evidence either, inevitably leaving victims confused about where they should submit their evidence.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.