Add police chiefs to CIO's investigative jurisdiction

Chang Se-jeong

The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo.

As the Democratic Party (DP) pushed amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act through the National Assembly, two unexpected provisions appeared. One added, without prior notice, grounds under Article 327 for courts to dismiss prosecutions. With suspicions already mounting that the ruling bloc could seek to withdraw charges filed against President Lee Jae Myung before he took office, the opposition says Lee could become the provision’s biggest beneficiary.

The other concerns Article 197-1. Until now, police investigative authority extended from inspectors through senior superintendents. The revision explicitly expands it to senior commissioners and above, meaning the head of the National Office of Investigation (NOI) and the commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency can directly exercise investigative powers.

The biggest controversy during the revision process was whether prosecutors should retain supplementary investigative authority as a safeguard for vulnerable people. Yet while that debate unfolded, hard-line DP lawmakers slipped in two contentious provisions. That amounts to deceptive legislation.

If the DP leadership presses ahead with withdrawing prosecutions despite public opposition, it could find itself trapped by its own proposed crime of “distorting the law.” Courts may now have to serve as the final safeguard.

More troubling is the lack of an effective mechanism to check an increasingly powerful police force. Prosecutors lost authority to direct police investigations in 2021, and their supplementary investigative authority is now being abolished. If police from the commissioner general down to field investigators abuse their powers through a rigid chain of command, who will stop them?

When prosecutors still supervised police investigations, police academy graduates argued that senior commissioners and above were administrative police officers without investigative authority and therefore should not be subject to prosecutorial direction. Now the commissioner general, who controls police personnel and budgets, will also have investigative authority, creating the risk of improper influence over cases with few external checks. Japan, by contrast, uses its National Public Safety Commission to oversee police through personnel and budgetary powers.

The case of Jang Yun-gi, detained on charges of murdering a high school girl in the course of attempted rape, has intensified such concerns. Allegations that senior NOI officials and officers at Gwangju Gwangsan Police Precinct manipulated or concealed aspects of the case are disturbing. When suspected wrongdoing involves an internal police network, investigations by fellow officers risk becoming exercises in institutional self-protection.

Police corruption and crimes therefore should be investigated by an independent outside agency. Under current law, senior superintendents general and higher-ranking officers are subject to investigation by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO). Yet police precinct chiefs, generally senior superintendents, are excluded despite wielding enormous authority over frontline investigations and substantial influence in local communities.

Senior superintendents serving as precinct chiefs or division heads at national and metropolitan police agencies should therefore be added to the CIO’s jurisdiction. A former senior police official noted that precinct chiefs directing major investigations exercise influence comparable to officials at Grade 3 or above. Police may object that such treatment would violate rank-based equity.

But the current system is already uneven. Judges, prosecutors and military generals had their ranks inflated during Korea’s authoritarian era. Nevertheless, all 3,584 judges and all 2,292 prosecutors authorized under staffing quotas fall under CIO jurisdiction. Among ordinary civil servants, roughly 2,700 officials at Grade 3 or above are covered regardless of their social influence.

By contrast, among some 144,000 police officers, only about 80 senior superintendents general or higher — roughly 0.05 percent — fall under CIO jurisdiction. Including roughly 3,200 superintendents would be excessive. But adding about 600 senior superintendents would bring the total to around 800, still only about 0.5 percent of the police force.

With prosecutors no longer acting as an external check, closer scrutiny by a strengthened CIO could encourage precinct chiefs to exercise their growing powers more carefully and fairly. The solution is straightforward: Amend Article 2-1 of the CIO Act to include senior superintendents, alongside Grade 4 and higher officials at the Serious Crimes Investigation Office.