SEOUL, Oct. 2 — South Korea fundamentally overhauled its criminal justice architecture on Friday, officially dissolving its 78-year-old Prosecutors’ Office and inaugurating two distinct statutory bodies to irrevocably separate criminal investigation from prosecution.
Under the sweeping restructuring, the newly created Prosecution Service operates under the Ministry of Justice to handle indictments and trial proceedings, while the Serious Crime Investigation Agency (SCIA) was established under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to take charge of core criminal inquiries.
The institutional shift marks the realization of the Lee Jae-myung administration's signature judicial reform agenda, dismantling decades of monopolistic authority wielded by the now-defunct Prosecutors’ Office.
Since its founding in 1948, the Prosecutors’ Office had possessed sweeping authority to initiate direct investigations, command the police, petition detention warrants, and exclusively determine criminal indictments.
Under the revised legal framework, those dual responsibilities are formally severed: prosecutors will focus exclusively on reviewing evidence, determining indictments, sustaining convictions in court, and pursuing asset recovery, while primary investigative powers are distributed across specialized enforcement agencies.
In reshaping its organizational footprint, the Ministry of Justice's Prosecution Service abolished all 42 direct-investigation and joint-task units across the country, transforming them into 29 specialized divisions solely dedicated to reviewing and indicting major crimes.
The Prosecution Service also restructured its headquarters, shifted seasoned prosecutors and administrative staff to trial and litigation divisions, and discarded 1,022 legacy internal regulations and directives that previously governed direct prosecutorial probes.
To curb investigative overreach and negligence, the Prosecution Service established the Non-Referral Review Department to rigorously audit cases that police decide not to forward to court.
The oversight body is empowered to identify unlawful or inadequate police work and issue formal demands for reinvestigation or supplementary probes.
In addition, revised criminal procedure codes introduce a mandatory pre-warrant interview protocol, allowing prosecutors to directly question suspects, investigators, and experts to verify factual grounds before requesting court-issued arrest warrants.
Concurrently, the Serious Crime Investigation Agency (SCIA), overseen by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, formally opened its doors to serve as the nation's premier enforcement arm for seven major offenses: corruption, economic crime, defense procurement irregularities, narcotics trafficking, crimes against state security, high-level cyber crimes, and judicial distortion.
Addressing attendees at the SCIA opening ceremony in central Seoul, Minister of the Interior and Safety Yoon Ho-jung underscored that the institutional split was an essential structural response to national democratic crises.
"Even if investigation and indictment are split, our collective responsibility toward the public must never be divided," Yoon stated, recalling the constitutional perils the country faced during internal turmoil two years ago.
"The inauguration of the SCIA is not the end of reform. The agency must fearlessly investigate the most powerful figures while safeguarding the fundamental rights of the vulnerable, unaffected by rank or political influence."
Under the newly decentralized landscape, everyday offenses will fall to the National Police Agency, while misconduct by judges, prosecutors, and high-ranking officials remains within the jurisdiction of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO).
Citizens seeking to lodge criminal complaints can no longer file petitions with prosecutors; all future complaints must be brought directly to the police or the SCIA.
Despite the milestone launch, significant operational challenges loom. The SCIA commenced work with roughly 1,900 personnel across its headquarters and six regional bureaus—only 66.1 percent of its authorized quota of 2,874.
The government plans to fill vacancies through targeted recruitments of forensic specialists and seasoned investigators, with the presidential office confirming that President Lee approved the parliamentary confirmation motion for Kim Ji-yong as the inaugural SCIA chief.
Managing unresolved caseloads left by the dismantled Prosecutors’ Office represents another hurdle, with some 165,000 backlogged or suspended files dating back to August requiring disposition or transfer within a 90-day grace period.
As legal observers voice concerns over potential procedural delays and inter-agency friction caused by restrictions on direct supplementary prosecutorial inquiries, the Prosecution Service vowed to maintain strict objectivity and robust inter-agency coordination to protect civil rights and prevent justice from being stalled.
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