Peace Broadcasting "Open World. Today! I'm Lee Seok-woo."

 

 

[Key Remarks]

"Attorney General Lee Gui-nam opposes reforms, seeks to rule over the people"

"Arbitrary termination of investigations and prosecutions are making people tired of powerful powers"

"Police are seeking warrants through prosecutors, which has clear limits because of the constitution"

"Prosecutors order the police, We are the only country in the world where the prosecutor orders the police and maintains a subordinate relationship within the prosecutor's office."

"Neutral and independent investigators should be placed under the Prime Minister's Office."

"Personnel for the Special Investigation Office should be independent of the prosecutor's office."

"A mechanism to check and review the arbitrary exercise of prosecutorial power is needed."

"The Citizens' Committee for the Prosecution has been formed, but it is only a bridesmaid for the prosecutor. We need to set up a body like the Prosecution Review Committee in Japan"

"We should be able to request data from the prosecution and re-investigate the case"

"The prosecutor's eye on political cases should be corrected"

"Increasing the number of Supreme Court justices will not solve the public's dissatisfaction"

"The idea of participation of outsiders in the Judicial Personnel Committee should be realized"

"Compliance support person system , There are criticisms that it is a way to take care of the lawyers' breadbasket, but it seems to be misunderstood"

"Compliance officers are necessary to monitor and check illegal management of companies and represent minority shareholders"

"Compliance officers, limit the scope of listed companies and do not need to be paid much"

[Full text of remarks]

The National Assembly's Special Committee on Judicial System Reform is in the midst of finalizing the six-member reform bill, which is scheduled to be passed by the National Assembly later this month. In particular, both prosecutors and courts are resisting the reforms to protect their vested interests. We talk to Yong-won Kim, a lawyer at Hanbyul, a law firm that strongly criticizes the prosecutor's investigative powers as a relic of an outdated era, to get his views on the most urgent judicial reforms. Yong-won Kim graduated from Seoul National University Law School and the 19th bar exam, served as a prosecutor at the Seoul, Busan, and Suwon district prosecutors' offices, and recently published a book titled "Are There Any Judges Who Have Gone to Heaven?" in which he strongly criticizes the culture of ex-officio honors in the legal profession. Let's connect with Attorney Kim Yong-won.

- It was on the 1st of this month, at the plenary session of the National Assembly's Special Committee on Legal System Reform, when Minister of Justice Lee Gui-nam said, 'There is nothing to fix in the prosecution anymore. ' How did you feel when you heard this remark?

▶I was very surprised when I heard that remark, and I think that this shows the ultimate arrogance of the prosecutor's office, the prosecutor's office that is lording it over the people. It's amazing that the minister can say something like this when the public's distrust and dissatisfaction with the prosecutor's office is through the roof.

- Now, Mr. Kim, you have been very critical of the prosecution recently. What is wrong with our prosecutorial power in particular?

▶Over the years, our prosecutors have exercised unlimited power by conducting targeted, low-hanging fruit investigations, unreasonable prosecutions, and arbitrary non-prosecutions and termination of investigations with no known criteria. This has made the public very tired."

- At an academic seminar of the Advanced Investigation System Research Society hosted by the National Police Agency, you said, "I see limitations in that there is no possibility of amending Article 12(3) of the Constitution, which requires the police to request a warrant through the prosecutor's office." What do you mean by this and how do you think it should be fixed in the future?

▶The current Article 12(3) of the Constitution states that the police cannot apply directly to the court for a search or arrest warrant, but must go through the prosecutor's office, so the independence of the police's investigative power is limited in this regard. So, in the long run, this constitutional provision needs to be fixed."

- So, basically, you're saying that the police need to be independent in their investigative powers, but they have to go through the prosecutor's office to apply for a warrant, and that's a limitation? Isn't there a command-and-subordination relationship between the police and the prosecutors in Korea?

▶There is no other country in the world where the prosecutor's office has such a strong unified organization and exercises the power to investigate, prosecute, and lead the investigation and monopolizes the power like this. Moreover, there is not a single country in the world that I know of that has such a command and subordination relationship, not only within the organization, but also to separate state agencies outside the organization, and those agencies have to obey.

- And now, among the prosecution reform proposals, the establishment of a special investigation agency is included. What is your view on this?

▶The prosecutors are hoping to maintain their current monopoly of power, so I think that the establishment of a special investigation bureau is essential in terms of decentralizing and checking the power of the prosecutors, and I don't see any effect by putting it under the Supreme Prosecutor's Office as proposed by the current special committee, the six-member subcommittee. And the current proposal limits the investigation to judges and prosecutors, which needs to be expanded, and then, very importantly, those who have worked as investigators or public prosecutors in the Special Investigation Agency should not be allowed to be appointed as prosecutors in the Public Prosecutor's Office. If a prosecutor is dispatched to work, or if a prosecutor resigns from the prosecutor's office, works, and then resigns again to be appointed as a prosecutor in the prosecutor's office, then that prosecutor will be under the eye of the existing prosecutor's organization and will actually be under the command of the existing prosecutor's organization.

- Are you saying that there should be personnel independence, for example, that they cannot work in the prosecutor's office for a certain period of time?

- If that is done, can the Central Bureau of Investigation remain?

▶Yes. The Central Bureau of Investigation is part of the prosecutor's organization, and now the prosecutor's office is saying that the Central Bureau of Investigation can never be abolished. But if you establish a special investigation office that is independent of the prosecutor's office, you don't have to tell the prosecutor's office to abolish the Central Bureau of Investigation or not to abolish the Central Bureau of Investigation. Even if you keep it, if the special investigation office is independent and neutral, I think the prosecutor's investigation will be quite different and improved.

- Is there any way to properly examine the arbitrary exercise of power by prosecutors?

▶When prosecutors exercise such arbitrary power, there must be a mechanism to examine and check it. It is difficult to establish a special investigation bureau to check the arbitrary exercise of power by existing prosecutors. It is a device for independent and neutral investigation. In Korea, we have a citizen's committee on prosecution, but it's just a bridesmaid of the prosecution, so I think we need to have a prosecution review body like the Prosecution Review Council in Japan, which has the power to request the prosecution to submit data when there is a suspicion of arbitrary exercise of prosecutorial power, to review the data, and to give corrective instructions such as re-investigation or filing of indictments based on the results of the review. I think that's what's most needed, and that's what's almost completely absent from the six-member panel's proposal.

- So you're saying that it will be created and included...

▶Yes.

- What about the need for reforms in the courts, what do you think are the most urgent and important areas and directions?

▶There are a lot of things that need to be reformed in the courts, especially the tendency for the courts to be beholden to the prosecution, even though they say that they are not, in important political cases, and then there is also a tendency for the judges to be beholden to the prosecution within their own ranks, where the lower judges are too beholden to the higher judges. There are many such areas, and the consensus of the Judicial Reform Task Force this time deals largely with increasing the number of Supreme Court justices. However, I don't think that increasing the number of Supreme Court justices will resolve the public's dissatisfaction, and it is not necessarily an urgent issue. If we discuss the current state, I think that the six-member subcommittee's proposal to statutorize the Supreme Court Judge Recommendation Committee and the Judicial Personnel Committee, and then to involve outsiders in them, should be realized. The current position of the Supreme Court is that outsiders should not participate, and if the Supreme Court's position is to do it, they are insisting on doing it in their own way as they have been doing it so far, and I think that should be fixed.

- Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the paralegal system. What is your opinion on this?

▶Yes, when the compliance officer system appeared, the media and other social opinions seemed to say that it was a way for lawyers and lawyers to get their own way, but I think there are many misunderstandings here. For a long time, haven't companies, especially large companies, been exposed to countless illegal acts, tax evasion, and non-funding, and the damage to minority shareholders has been enormous, and in the end, these things have come back to the people's burden. However, in the current commercial law or related laws, there is an auditor or audit committee independent director system, but these systems are not a check on the legality or illegality of corporate management. Overall, it is a body that represents minority shareholders in corporate management. Therefore, there was no proper check on corporate illegal behavior. So, I think this compliance officer system is necessary, but mainly business organizations such as the Korea Federation of Independent Businesses are opposing it. They are saying that it infringes on the management of the company, but I think it's just an excuse, and they are saying that they will continue to do the old illegal management. In my opinion, there are countless cases where companies are spending hundreds of millions of won per case to hire a top lawyer when they are in trouble for non-funding or doing something illegal, and with that kind of money, you can have a compliance officer and pay a compliance officer's salary for 10 years. I would have a compliance officer, but I would limit it to public companies. I'm not saying that every publicly traded company should have a compliance officer, but it should be limited to a certain scope, and it doesn't have to be high-paid, and it should be up to the company to decide how much they want to pay, and I think that's why I think it's necessary.