The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office is set to launch a reform drive to strengthen the moral fiber and integrity of prosecutors and overhaul its top-down organizational culture.
The prosecution has created a reform council under instructions from Prosecutor General Kim Soo-nam. The council consists of four task forces that would address such problems as corruption among prosecutors, a military-style command culture, abuse of prosecutorial powers and unreasonable division of labor.
The push for reform came following the corruption scandal of Jin Kyung-joon, a vice ministerial-level prosecutor, and the suicide of a young prosecutor who had been verbally and physically abused by his senior.
The two cases shed light on the problems that have been festering in the prosecution, an organization that wields enormous power without being checked by external agencies.
Jin was indicted Friday on charges of receiving bribes amounting to 920 million won ($827,000) from Kim Jung-ju, his old college buddy and chairman of Nexon Co., Korea’s largest game developer.
Jin, who is to be deprived of his status as a prosecutor, is also charged with having pressured a Hanjin Group affiliate to award contracts worth 10 billion won to a cleaning company run by his brother-in-law.
The scandal illustrated how a corrupt prosecutor used his power to amass personal wealth. It also confirmed the widespread perception that prosecutors have become crime perpetrators rather than crime fighters.
The prosecution’s voluntary reform drive was also prompted by the suicide in May of Kim Hong-young, 33, a prosecutor at a Seoul district prosecutors’ office.
The young prosecutor took his own life allegedly due to the verbal and physical assaults of his superior. Investigators have found that the senior prosecutor, a foul-mouthed bully, had habitually harassed the victim.
The prosecution decided Wednesday to ask the Justice Ministry to remove the ill-natured prosecutor from his post. The decision was unprecedented, as no prosecutor has thus far been dismissed for verbal and physical abuse against a junior colleague.
The case laid bare the undemocratic organizational culture of the prosecution where junior prosecutors are required to obey their seniors unconditionally and tolerate insults and violence without resistance.
The outdated culture stems from a strictly hierarchical command chain. A vertical structure may be needed for efficient investigations, but this does not mean that senior prosecutors are allowed to bully their juniors.
The prosecution’s voluntary reform campaign is an indication that prosecutors have begun to take their organizational problems seriously. When similar cases occurred in the past, they simply dismissed them as personal aberrations of a handful of unscrupulous prosecutors, rejecting the view that their work culture had problems.
While the reform drive is a step forward, prosecutors are unlikely to go much beyond largely cosmetic reforms. As the proverb goes, “You cannot scratch your own back.”
At the root of the problems lies the immense power prosecutors wield in the justice system. They control police investigations and monopolize the authority to indict criminal suspects. They not only decide who will be prosecuted but determine the specifics of charges. They enjoy enormous leverage in exercising their powers as no external agencies constrain them.
These problems cannot be rectified by prosecutors alone. They require the involvement of legislators and the administration. Opposition political parties are pushing to set up an agency specializing in probe into corruption cases involving high-ranking officials, including prosecutors. They need to go further than that to transform the structure and culture of the prosecution.
