[Editorial] Clearer Standards for Deciding Whether to Make Arrests

There is a lot being said about the prosecution's decision to indict but not arrest Park Yong Sung and other members of the owning family of the Doosan group who have been implicated in embezzlement allegations. It is of course always desirable to avoid making excessive arrests, and investigating people without detaining them is something people naturally want to see these days. And if you look at it that way, the decision not to arrest members of the Doosan Park family might not necessarily be something that has to be taken issue with.

The problem is that the decision was not based on clear principles and standards. The preposterous reasons given by prosecutors have been that "many things were taken into consideration for the national interest," and that they "also took into consideration that Park is the chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce." Essentially it is the prosecution itself which has confessed that it did not arrive at its decision in a manner that is faithful to the spirit of the constitution and the Criminal Procedure Law, and that is what is wrong with the decision.

The prosecution's lack of principles when it comes to putting people under detention was evident as well in how its attitude about Dongguk University professor Kang Jeong Koo remains unchanged. It still believes it was right to arrest him. If it wants to indict chairman Park of Doosan without arresting him, it first needs to change its earlier stance on what it did with Kang. It is because it insists on arresting people in "public security" cases while applying different standards to the conglomerates that it is criticized for being inconsistent.

The prosecution needs to stop being comfortable with the practice of deciding whether to put people in detention however it sees fit at the time. There needs to be clearer and more transparent principles and standards for arresting suspects or deciding to merely indict them, something urgently needed also to establish balance in regular criminal cases and not just ones that attract a lot of attention. Everyone is watching carefully to see how prosecutors treat former National Intelligence Service (NIS) directors Lim Dong Won and Shin Kun and with what principles. Both men have been implicated in the NIS illegal eavesdropping case.

The Hankyoreh, 11 November 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]