"They split the prosecution service in two, spending tens of billions of won in the name of rooting out political prosecutors. Yet now that the Major Crimes Investigation Agency has been launched, it looks like they are building a structure for handing down orders for political investigations."
That is how a legal community official I met recently described what they saw in the agency's launch. The argument is that a criminal justice overhaul meant to break the prosecution's monopoly on investigation and indictment is instead narrowing the distance between investigative bodies and political power.
The attendance of Kim Ji-yong, the agency's first commissioner, at Cabinet meetings is the scene that has deepened such doubts. The agency was launched under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and the interior minister's authority to direct its investigations is written into the rules. Add to that a setting in which the commissioner meets the president on a regular basis, and the burden on investigations into those in power can only grow. Kim, who had said attendance would be decided in consultation with related agencies, began sitting in on the meetings right after taking office.
Unease is also detectable among the staff who moved to the new agency. The concern is that they left the prosecution service to avoid being drawn into politically driven investigations, only to end up handling inquiries demanded by the government. On top of worries that the agency's anti-corruption investigation bureau could become a channel for politically ordered investigations, questions are being raised over whether the first commissioner can fend off outside pressure. Distrust of investigative neutrality taking root inside the new organization itself is not something to brush aside.
The ruling party, meanwhile, goes a step further, proposing that the authority to investigate the president and the prime minister — held by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials — also be transferred to the new agency. That amounts to the governing camp overturning on its own the identity of the office, which the Moon Jae-in administration launched with a pledge to conduct investigations with no sanctuaries. It is a point that invites suspicion that the real aim is to hand investigations of high-ranking officials to a more compliant body.
If the first restructuring of the criminal justice system in 78 years is to escape criticism that it is a realignment serving those in power, it must first be made clear from whom the new organization is supposed to be independent. A declaration that "we will put an end to the politicization of investigations" cannot by itself win public trust. The president must keep a distance from investigative agencies, and the commissioner must prove it by upholding the law and principle even in the face of demands from those in power. Political investigations must not take the place vacated by political prosecutors.