Investigative agencies of the Army, Navy and Air Force — military prosecution offices and military police — will be consolidated under the Ministry of National Defense as early as the second half of next year. Military investigative bodies will then report directly to the defense minister rather than to the chiefs of staff of each service branch.
According to reporting by The Seoul Economic Daily on the 17th, the prosecution and investigation units of each service will be merged into the defense ministry as part of a realignment of the investigative command authority now held by the service chiefs. Under the current system, investigations are reported to and directed by each service chief, raising questions about their independence and fairness.
Under the plan, the prosecution offices and investigation units now supervised by the Army, Navy and Air Force chiefs of staff will be placed directly under the defense ministry, with the minister exercising direct command and oversight. The measure is one of the national defense policy tasks proposed by the National Planning Committee last September and now being pursued by the government.
"Just as military courts were reorganized into five regional courts under the military justice reform during the Moon Jae-in administration, the prosecution offices and military police of each service will also be merged into the defense ministry and reorganized on a regional basis," a military official said. "The military police will be consolidated under the ministry's Defense Investigation Headquarters, and the prosecutors under the ministry's Prosecution Office."
The reform is intended to ensure that only the defense minister commands and oversees military investigative agencies, blocking commanders from intervening in investigations, according to sources. The military plans to build an independent and fair military justice system by strengthening transparency in the command and oversight of agencies that previously belonged to individual services.
Some critics argue the drawbacks could outweigh the benefits. Merging military investigative and prosecutorial functions into the defense ministry would swell the ministry's Defense Investigation Headquarters and Prosecution Office, they say, and there would be few effective means to check the defense minister if the minister sought to intervene in an investigation.
In the death of a Marine corporal surnamed Chae, for instance, then-Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup drew criticism for blocking the transfer of the Marine Corps investigation unit's findings to civilian investigators. If the investigative agencies are folded into the ministry, changes to the service-centered investigative command structure appear inevitable.
The defense ministry is commissioning research on how to check the concentration of power that would follow the consolidation. The study, titled "Research on Democratic and Institutional Control Systems for Military Investigative Functions and Their Development," began on July 23 and is due to produce results in late December.
The research will examine democratic and institutional controls over military investigative agencies, along with safeguards against the concentration of power that would come with placing them directly under the ministry. "We will make a final decision on the direction of the consolidation and organizational realignment after reviewing the research findings and hearing the views of each service," a defense ministry official said.
Once the military prosecution offices and investigation units are merged into the ministry, the defense minister will command and oversee both the indictment powers of 105 military prosecutors now assigned to the ministry's Prosecution Office and the prosecution offices of each service, and the investigative powers of the investigation units reporting directly to the service chiefs — the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps investigation units.
"The National Planning Committee asked for a report on a plan to place the prosecution offices and investigation units of each service directly under the defense ministry as a defense reform task, and the ministry's Office of Legal Affairs has been reviewing this direction until recently," a military source said.
After the 2021 death of an Air Force noncommissioned officer who had been sexually assaulted — a case that drew intense public criticism over a botched investigation and secondary victimization — command authority over military prosecutors and military police, previously held by commanders at each unit level, was consolidated in 2022 under the command and oversight of the service chiefs of staff.
As a result, military prosecution organizations within frontline units were all abolished. Military prosecution offices based inside units, which had to take orders from unit commanders, were eliminated and replaced with headquarters prosecution offices reporting directly to the service chiefs. Ordinary prosecution divisions were placed under them to handle cases by region.
Military police in frontline units were left to handle only operational duties such as security, while their investigative functions were separated and consolidated into headquarters investigation units reporting directly to the service chiefs. Regional investigation commands were also established — seven for the Army and five each for the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
If the military investigative agencies are consolidated under the defense ministry next year, the investigative and indictment powers of military prosecutors and military police will be unified under the command and oversight of the defense minister, without involvement from the service chiefs of staff, five years after the earlier reform.
