[Editorial] Prosecution Should See Situation Without Bias

The chaos over Supreme Public Prosecutor General Kim Jong Bin's resignation is deepening. Kim resigned after the justice minister decided to exert his right to make key decisions in the prosecution's investigation into Dongguk University professor Kang Jeong Koo. Working-level prosecutors are indignant and the prosecution as a whole is in a big commotion. The situation is furthered by some media organizations that define Justice Minister Chun Jung Bae as the wrongdoer and the prosecution as the victim, which is encouraging prosecution discontent. Unrest at the prosecution is undesirable for the prosecution and bad for the country. Prosecutors need to find composure at this point. And they need to look back at the situation to see the essence of it objectively.

To begin with, the case of professor Kang is, as Grand National Party (GNP) governor of Gyeonggi Province Sohn Hak Kyu so aptly expressed, was something that should've just ended as nothing more than a "typhoon in a teacup." Our society has matured enough to be able to not be upset by comments of such proportions. It is not so weak that national security can be put into a state of peril because of a single person's claims.

Secondly, even if Kang's comments do go against the National Security Law (NSL), they are not something that needs to be investigated with him under arrest. Surely enough, the Seoul district prosecutors office sent the Supreme Public Prosecutor General's office a report saying Kang could be investigated "either with him under arrest or not," showing you how putting people under arrest should not be a knee jerk response. It is in this context that Justice Minister Chun directed the prosecution to investigate Kang without arrest. He didn't order them to stop investigating Kang and he didn't tell them to not prosecute him. What he told prosecutors to do was nothing more and nothing less than to be true to what criminal law requires when someone is kept under arrest during an ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile the prosecution has taken what is a simple matter and turned it into something involving their "pride and honor," and in doing so have made things more complicated than they had to be. The prosecution's underlying attitude is an arrogant and self-protecting approach that says every decision prosecutors make is the correct and that no one should be allowed to interfere. The prosecution's honor and reputation, however, improve when prosecutors demonstrate they have the courage to recognize and correct their mistakes. Some hard-line prosecutors say that Kim's resignation has defended the prosecution's pride, but one doubts whether that's the case. One can, of course, fully understand the shock, confusion, and concerns prosecutors feel about the justice minister's decision to invoke his authority and issue a directive about the investigation. However, there's no way that prosecutors are unaware of the fact that our society isn't so foolish that it would tolerate the overuse of the minister's authority to involve himself that way. And once the principle of "investigation without arrest" is properly established, there would be no reason for the justice minister to overuse his authority.

As had been feared, Kim's resignation has furthered the chaos. The focus of attention has become questions over "whether Justice Minister Chun will resign as well" and "who will replace Kim," and the really important issue – eradicating the bad habit of holding people under arrest unnecessarily – has fallen beyond the horizon. As sub-standard arguments take over you worry the country will lose the opportunity to make the occasion a point of departure for productive debate.

The prosecution needs to restore healthy common sense. Prosecutors need to remember that they are simultaneously the strict enforcers of the law and protectors of civil rights. The thing they need to be worrying about more than anything else is how to be truer to the spirit of the constitution and to the rules stipulated by criminal law. Prosecutorial independence is a tool for achieving that. The Grand National Party and certain old-establishment media need to quit with their irresponsible and baseless offensive against Minister Chun. They need to explain how directing the prosecution to abide by the guidelines of criminal law is an act that "destroys constitutional order" and "threatens the liberal democratic system." We hope to see this wasteful arguing end as soon as possible and see this matter developed into something that advances the people's freedom and basic rights.

The Hankyoreh, 17 October 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]