Korea abolishes Prosecutors' Office after 78 years, putting new criminal justice system to test

Korea abolished the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on Friday after 78 years and launched new agencies that split investigative and prosecutorial powers. The new system shifts investigations to the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, police and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, while the Prosecution Service handles indictments and court prosecutions. The overhaul raises concerns about overlapping jurisdictions, staffing shortages and whether public safety will improve.

The formal consultative committee for resolving jurisdiction disputes will not be established until Feb. 5 next year.

The SCIA will handle six serious crime categories plus the new crime of law distortion, while the CIO continues investigating designated offenses involving senior public officials.

The SCIA received 1,962 applications in two rounds of special recruitment and would still be about 900 staff short even if all applicants are hired.

Kim Ji-yong, President Lee Jae Myung’s nominee to lead the SCIA, has not yet had a parliamentary confirmation hearing and will not be able to take office when the agency launches.

Published Oct 2, 2026 7:01 am KST

Overhaul ends prosecutors' investigative powers but leaves key questions unanswered

Workers remove the Busan District Prosecutors' Office sign from the building in Busan, Wednesday, ahead of the abolition of the Prosecutors’ Office. Newsis

Korea on Friday abolished the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office after 78 years and launched two new state agencies dividing its investigative and prosecutorial powers, ushering in one of the most sweeping changes to the country’s criminal justice system in decades.

Under the new framework taking effect Friday, investigations will be divided among the newly established Serious Crimes Investigation Agency (SCIA), the police and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO). The new Prosecution Service will review cases, decide whether to indict suspects, request warrants from courts based on applications from investigative agencies and conduct prosecutions in court.

But the launch of the new system leaves several unanswered questions: How agencies will handle cases when their jurisdictions overlap, whether prosecutors can exercise sufficient oversight without investigative authority of their own and whether the new agencies are adequately staffed and equipped to take over complex major-crime investigations.

Workers remove a sign reading "Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office," above, and "Gwangju High Prosecutors' Office" in Gwangju, Wednesday. Newsis

In the days leading up to the overhaul, prosecutor’s offices nationwide had been removing visible traces of the old institution. At the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul, workers ground off the word “prosecution” engraved on manhole covers, while signs bearing the prosecution’s bamboo emblem and the Prosecutors’ History Museum were taken down.

The overhaul formally decouples investigations from prosecutions. It dismantles a system in which prosecutors possessed sweeping authority to directly probe major cases, conduct supplementary investigations and ultimately decide whether to indict suspects.

Prosecutors may still request that investigative agencies conduct additional work when they find gaps in a case file. However, they are no longer allowed to force the police or the SCIA to follow their requests, or directly conduct supplementary investigations.

Under the new framework, the SCIA will hold investigative authority over six serious crime categories — corruption, major economic crimes, defense industry offenses, organized drug trafficking, national security violations and cybercrime — in addition to the newly-established crime of law distortion.

CIO officials will continue to investigate designated offenses involving senior public officials. Police will generally investigate ordinary offenses. In some cases, however, the jurisdictions of the police, the SCIA and the CIO could overlap — particularly in corruption and abuse-of-power allegations involving high-ranking officials.

That overlap has become one of the biggest concerns surrounding the reform, as the formal consultative committee that would handle disputes over jurisdictions will not be established until Feb. 5 next year.

That means the police, the SCIA and the CIO will have to rely on informal consultations and working-level arrangements during the transition period. Critics warn that this could lead to duplicated investigations, delayed case transfers or “ping-pong” disputes between agencies over responsibility for politically sensitive or complex cases.

A man enters the headquarters of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency in Seoul, Sept. 22. The agency begins operations Friday as part of a sweeping overhaul of Korea’s criminal justice system. Yonhap

Such worries have recently been fueled by the case involving Jang Yoon-gi , who was convicted of murdering a high school student in Gwangju. His police officer father helped conceal evidence in an apparent effort to prevent the case from being treated as murder-rape — an offense subject to a significantly heavier punishment.

Similar concerns have been raised by a recent missing person case in Jeju , where a police officer was accused of closing the investigation into the whereabouts of a woman in her 30s without confirming that she was safe. Her body was later found, prompting scrutiny of the police’s internal oversight system and its ability to police itself.

Another immediate challenge is the SCIA’s ability to absorb the former prosecution’s role in major-crime investigations, which require specialized expertise in areas such as cybercrime and complex financial crimes.

The SCIA’s launch-preparation team received a combined 1,962 applications through two rounds of special recruitment for investigators. Even if all applicants are hired, the agency would fill only 68.3 percent of its authorized workforce of 2,874, leaving it short of about 900 personnel and requiring further recruitment through additional hiring after its launch.

The SCIA will also begin operations without its inaugural chief in place. Kim Ji-yong, President Lee Jae Myung’s nominee to lead the agency, has yet to undergo a parliamentary confirmation hearing, meaning he will not be able to take office when the new institution launches Friday.

His nomination has drawn pushback from hard-liners within the ruling camp over his career as a prosecutor. Some critics have warned that putting a former prosecutor in charge could turn the SCIA into a “second Prosecutors’ Office” under a different name, while others have accused Kim of being aligned with impeached former President Yoon Suk Yeol, himself a former prosecutor.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Seong Ghi-hong, senior presidential secretary for public affairs, said the presidential office plans to submit the nominee’s confirmation-hearing request to the National Assembly within the next few days.

"Some of the allegations raised by critics were either factually inaccurate or based on vague speculation, and we determined that they did not warrant denying the nominee an opportunity at this stage to explain himself before the National Assembly’s confirmation hearing," he said.

Earlier, Lee said on social media that an independent recommendation committee, following public nominations, narrowed the list to four candidates, from which the interior minister selected Kim as the final nominee after consultations and recommended him to the president.

Experts say the system reform’s ultimate test will be whether it improves the public’s sense of safety. The transition may be most vulnerable in investigations into violent crime, sexual offenses and other cases that directly affect daily life, one professor said, warning that poor coordination between police and prosecutors could undermine public confidence.

“The government and the ruling bloc will have to prove through results that the new system is better than the old one,” Cho Jin-man, professor at Duksung Women’s University, told The Korea Times. “If ordinary people come to feel that serious crimes are not being properly investigated or that public safety has weakened, criticism of the prosecution reform could grow very quickly.”

韩国于周五废除了存在了78年的最高检察厅，并成立了新的机构，将调查权和检察权分开。新体制将调查工作移交给重案调查厅、警察和高级官员腐败调查厅，而检察厅则负责起诉和法庭审判。此次改革引发了人们对管辖权重叠、人员短缺以及公共安全能否得到改善的担忧。

解决管辖权争议的正式协商委员会要到明年2月5日才会成立。

SCIA 将处理六类严重犯罪以及新的歪曲法律罪，而 CIO 将继续调查涉及高级公职人员的指定犯罪。

SCIA 在两轮特别招聘中收到了 1,962 份申请，即使所有申请人都被录用，SCIA 仍然会缺少大约 900 名员工。

总统李在明提名的中央情报局局长人选金智勇尚未经过国会确认听证，因此该机构成立时他无法上任。

发布于2026年10月2日 上午7:01（韩国标准时间）

改革终止了检察官的调查权，但留下了一些关键问题悬而未决。

周三，在釜山地方检察厅被撤销前夕，工人们正在拆除釜山地方检察厅大楼上的标志。

韩国周五废除了存在了 78 年的最高检察厅，并成立了两个新的国家机构，将调查权和检察权分开，开启了该国刑事司法系统几十年来最彻底的变革之一。

根据周五生效的新框架，调查工作将由新成立的重案调查局（SCIA）、警察和高级官员反腐败调查办公室（CIO）分工负责。新的检察机关将负责审查案件、决定是否起诉嫌疑人、根据调查机构的申请向法院申请逮捕令，并在法庭上进行起诉。

但新系统的推出也留下了一些未解之谜：当各机构的管辖范围重叠时，它们将如何处理案件；检察官在没有自己的调查权的情况下，能否行使足够的监督权；以及新机构是否有足够的人员配备和设备来接管复杂的大案调查。

周三，在光州，工人们拆除了写有“光州地方检察厅”和“光州高等检察厅”的标牌。（Newsis）

在改革前的几天里，全国各地的检察机关都在清除旧机构的痕迹。在首尔最高检察厅，工人们磨掉了井盖上刻着的“检察”字样，同时拆除了带有检察机关竹制徽章和检察历史博物馆标志的牌匾。

此次改革正式将调查与起诉脱钩。它废除了检察官拥有直接调查重大案件、开展补充调查并最终决定是否起诉嫌疑人的广泛权力的制度。

检察官在发现案件卷宗存在漏洞时，仍可要求调查机构开展补充调查工作。但是，他们不再被允许强迫警方或刑事调查局（SCIA）执行其要求，或直接开展补充调查。

在新框架下，SCIA 将对六类严重犯罪拥有调查权——腐败、重大经济犯罪、国防工业犯罪、有组织贩毒、国家安全犯罪和网络犯罪——此外还包括新设立的歪曲法律罪。

首席信息官办公室（CIO）官员将继续调查涉及高级公职人员的指定犯罪行为。警方通常会调查普通犯罪行为。然而，在某些情况下，警方、高级信息官办公室（SCIA）和首席信息官办公室（CIO）的管辖范围可能会重叠——尤其是在涉及高级官员的腐败和滥用职权指控中。

这种重叠已成为改革中最大的担忧之一，因为负责处理管辖权争议的正式咨询委员会要到明年 2 月 5 日才会成立。

这意味着在过渡期内，警方、特别刑事调查局（SCIA）和首席情报官（CIO）将不得不依赖非正式磋商和工作层面的安排。批评人士警告说，这可能导致重复调查、案件移交延误，或者各机构之间就政治敏感或复杂案件的责任归属问题出现“踢皮球”式的争执。

9月22日，一名男子进入位于首尔的重案调查厅总部。该机构于周五开始运作，这是韩国刑事司法系统全面改革的一部分。（韩联社）

最近，张允基一案加剧了人们的担忧。张允基因在光州谋杀一名高中女生而被定罪。他的警察父亲显然是为了阻止案件被定性为强奸谋杀罪（该罪名刑罚要重得多）而帮助其隐瞒证据。

济州岛最近发生的一起失踪人口案件也引发了类似的担忧。一名警官被指控在未确认一名30多岁女性安全的情况下就结束了对其下落的调查。该女性的遗体后来被发现，这促使人们对警方的内部监督体系及其自我监管能力进行审查。

另一个迫在眉睫的挑战是 SCIA 能否吸收前检察官在重大犯罪调查中的作用，这些调查需要网络犯罪和复杂金融犯罪等领域的专业知识。

SCIA的启动准备团队通过两轮专门的调查员招聘，共收到1962份申请。即使所有申请者都被录用，该机构也只能达到其2874名核定员工人数的68.3%，仍缺少约900名人员，需要在启动后通过额外招聘进一步扩充人员。

最高情报机构（SCIA）也将在没有首任局长的情况下开始运作。李在明总统提名的该机构负责人人选金智勇尚未通过国会确认听证，这意味着他无法在周五新机构成立时就职。

金正日的提名因其检察官经历而遭到执政阵营强硬派的反对。一些批评人士警告说，任命一位前检察官掌管最高情报局可能会使该局变成换了名字的“第二个检察院”，而另一些人则指责金正日与已被弹劾的前总统尹锡烈关系密切，尹锡烈本人也是一名前检察官。

周四，总统府公共事务高级秘书成基洪在接受记者采访时表示，总统府计划在未来几天内向国会提交提名人确认听证请求。

他说：“批评者提出的一些指控要么与事实不符，要么基于模糊的猜测，我们认为这些指控不足以剥夺被提名人在国民议会确认听证会之前解释自己的机会。”

此前，李在社交媒体上表示，一个独立的推荐委员会在公众提名后，将候选人名单缩小到四人，内政部长在与这四人协商后，最终选定金某为提名人，并向总统推荐了他。

专家表示，这项制度改革的最终考验在于它能否提升公众的安全感。一位教授指出，在暴力犯罪、性犯罪以及其他直接影响日常生活的案件调查中，改革过渡期可能最为脆弱，并警告称，警方和检察官之间协调不力可能会削弱公众的信任。

“政府和执政联盟必须用实际结果证明新制度比旧制度更好，”德成女子大学教授赵镇万告诉《韩国时报》。“如果普通民众觉得严重犯罪案件没有得到妥善调查，或者公共安全受到削弱，那么对检控改革的批评声可能会迅速高涨。”