SEOUL, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's cabinet on Tuesday passed a bill to strip prosecutors of investigative power, marking a historic overhaul of the Asian country's criminal justice system in over 70 years.
The revision to the Criminal Procedure Act was passed at a cabinet meeting to abolish prosecutors' authority to conduct both direct and supplementary investigations, completely separating the investigation and prosecution.
President Lee Jae Myung said at the meeting that the prosecution had excessively exercised disproportionate power across the entire criminal justice system for decades, ranging from investigations to indictments and warrant requests.
Under the abnormal structure, the prosecution had abused its absolute power while covering up or targeting certain cases, Lee pointed out, stressing that the separation of investigation and prosecution was the very first step toward normalizing the abnormal system.
Under the revised act scheduled to take effect on Oct. 2, all criminal investigations will be transferred to the police, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, and a newly established serious crimes investigation agency.
Prosecutors will be prohibited from conducting any form of investigations, directly questioning suspects or witnesses, and independently gathering evidence.
Instead, prosecutors will only be able to request supplementary investigations from the police, which must complete investigations within one month and notify the prosecutors of the outcomes. If necessary, the police can extend the investigations by up to one month. ■
