The most fundamental legal ground for the investigation system of the Republic of Korea is the Constitution. 4.19 Revolution demonstrated the people's judgment on the abuse of police authority under the authoritarian regime of the 1st Republic. In res...
The most fundamental legal ground for the investigation system of the Republic of Korea is the Constitution. 4.19 Revolution demonstrated the people's judgment on the abuse of police authority under the authoritarian regime of the 1st Republic. In response to that, the exclusive authority of a prosecutor to request a warrant to the court has been stipulated in the constitution of the 3rd Republic. The exclusive authority of a prosecutor has become the most important provision guaranteeing a prosecutor's right to supervise investigations of other investigating authorities and the starting point for the investigation system specifically stipulated by Criminal Procedure Law, Criminal Law, and other statues. The logic related to the investigation system derived from the provisions of the Constitution includes the principle of the people's sovereignty, legalism of the governmental organization, and the principle of local self-government. The investigating authorities should respect and embody provisions such as the obligation to guarantee the basic rights under the Constitution, the dignity and value of the human, the right to pursue one's happiness, the right of equality, personal freedom, right of privacy, the right to a speedy trial, and statutory reservation of fundamental rights. With regards to the relation to ideas of the Criminal Justice, a prosecutor's supervision to the investigations can optimally realize the principle that the investigating authorities should minimize the limitation when they have to limit the people's basic rights and the basic right to various judiciary proceedings preventing the infringement of the fundamental rights.
Referring to the examples of the legislation regarding the investigation system in other countries, basic principles and values of the investigation system are stipulated, secondary to the fundamental principles about the guarantee and limitation of the basic rights. In Continental law such as Germany's or France's accepting a prosecutor's right to supervise investigations with regards to the principle of warrant under the Constitution, only prosecutors have the right to request a warrant to the court. Even in Anglo-American law allowing independent right to investigate of the police, the police has the right to request warrants of arrest, search, and seizure only and its right to investigate under the arrest is thoroughly restricted.
In the organizational structure of the Korean government, the Prosecutors' Office is the belonging subject of the right to investigate and the Police Office is the belonging subject of the public security. Under the control of the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Government Administration and Home Affairs, each body is ultimately responsible for the citizens by the medium of the President. Therefore, the opinion that the National Government Organization Act should be revised if the police office is to become an independent investigating authority without the supervision of the prosecutors gets persuasive power.
Since the prosecutors' authority has a peculiar status as a quasi-judiciary authority within the Administration, the Minister of Justice has limitation on the right to supervise and direct. Thus, there exist choices of resignation, acceptance, or others when the prosecutors' authority and the administrative authority conflict each other.
According to the principle of local autonomy set forth in our constitution, the substantial part of self-governed police system is supposed to have already been realized in actual practice. Also it is shown in a number of developed countries that the authority of police needs to be thoroughly distributed through a self-governed independent police system. However, these have not been true in Korea.
With the advent of 'Participation' administration, the self-governed independent police system has been introduced in Jeju Islands with a limited scope and the newly drafted 'Bill of Self-governed Police' is in progress of the National Assembly even though the bill itself has certain parts to be amended for the successful establishment of self-governed police system.
Investigation system of each country has been uniquely formed based on its historical background with distinction of civil law system and common law system. Nevertheless, it is assumed as a generally accepted agreement that the prosecutors should control and supervise the investigation of police through the institution of the prosecution service.
In Korea, the dispute over desirable investigation system has been continued ever since the foundation of our nation, and various discussions in 'Participation' administration have marked record active and controversial together with the movement of revision to the relevant constitution provisions. Our administration has launched the 'Deliberative Body on Investigation Authority between the Prosecution Service and Police' and the 'Advisory Committee on Investigation System' to reconcile the dispute over investigatory authority between the prosecution service and police but to end up without feasible outcome due to a fierce conflict in opinions of both parties.
With regard to the investigation system, there have been various theories including one that advocates separate investigatory authority for the police and its opposing argument on the other extreme, as well as, in a middle ground, a compromised investigation system theory and another argumentation for integrated body of judicial police such as FBI of the U.S. Among this complexity of discussions, the necessity of prosecutors' direction and supervision over the criminal investigation should not be denied.
Last but not least, both the prosecution service and police must put more efforts in reform for the betterment of the current investigation system. On the part of police, distribution of police authority through self-governed police system, clear division and distinction of administrative police and judicial police, narrowing down its over-broad investigatory power, and securing autonomous investigation along with checks on the abuse of its power need to be achieved. And on the other part of the prosecution service, it needs to enhance it status of a quasi-judiciary body, improve measures practiced in supervision of police investigation, make the investigatory process more transparent, and secure adequate means to monitor and control over non-prosecution decision of a prosecutor.
Since the gap between different positions of the prosecution service and police does not seem to be easily filled up in near future and the political resolution cannot stay away from the influences of partisan political interest, we need to set up a special organization to look into this matter more thoroughly and objectively with a viewpoint of long term policy through a new approach to come up with our nation's desirable investigation system.