President Lee Jae-myung has escalated his rhetoric in a political dispute over whether the head of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and the prosecutor general, who leads the Public Prosecution Office, should sit in on Cabinet meetings. Lee's position is that directing and supervising the two bodies is both a power and a responsibility. Within and outside the legal community, however, critics warn that making attendance by the investigation agency chief and the prosecutor general a regular practice could damage the neutrality and independence of investigations — producing what they call investigations and indictments shaped by a reading of political signals.
According to legal sources on the 25th, Lee said on the 22nd that the Constitution and the Government Organization Act make clear that "every ministry, department and agency — whether the Public Prosecution Office, the weather agency or the fire agency — is subject to the direction and supervision of the president and the prime minister." He stressed that "abandoning direction and supervision of the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency would violate the Constitution and the Government Organization Act, making it grounds for impeachment and a criminal offense of dereliction of duty." Under Article 11 of the Government Organization Act, the president, as head of the government, directs and supervises the heads of all central administrative agencies in accordance with statutes. The president may also suspend or revoke an order or disposition by the prime minister or the head of a central administrative agency if the president finds it unlawful or improper. Article 18 of the same law states that the prime minister directs and supervises the heads of central administrative agencies under the president's orders. The remarks are read as reaffirming his view that, because the two bodies are agencies covered by Articles 11 and 18, there is no problem with their heads attending Cabinet meetings.
Lee asked pointedly whether critics were telling him to "break the Constitution and the law and not exercise direction and supervision over the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency" or "to exercise that direction and supervision not in an open meeting but behind closed doors." He added that "telling me not to have the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency attend an open Cabinet meeting is a strained argument that runs against the Constitution, the law and common sense," and that "the claim that excluding it secures political neutrality has no logic to it."
Within the legal community, by contrast, Lee's position is being read as a misinterpretation of the boundary between administration and criminal justice. The former Prosecutors' Office Act, as well as the laws establishing the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency and the Public Prosecution Office, place the heads of those bodies under the direction and supervision of the interior minister and the justice minister respectively, creating what lawyers describe as a designated channel of communication that must be followed to guard against any erosion of political neutrality and independence. The law on the investigation agency states that the interior minister generally directs and supervises its head and staff, while for specific cases the minister directs and supervises only the agency head. For the Public Prosecution Office, the justice minister is the highest supervisor of prosecutorial affairs, generally directing and supervising prosecutors and, in specific cases, directing and supervising the prosecutor general.
An academic who formerly served as a judge said the statutory channel running through the prosecutor general or the investigation agency chief "was created precisely to keep the president from issuing orders to them directly or intervening in particular cases," adding that "if they are seated at Cabinet meetings as a matter of routine, even an offhand presidential remark such as 'pay attention to that investigation' or 'be careful about that indictment' can have an effect, which is not good for political neutrality or independence." A lawyer who formerly served as a chief prosecutor also criticized the arrangement, saying the two bodies "are criminal justice institutions rather than administrative ones, which is why the law set up a separate channel of communication to act as a buffer," and that "having them attend Cabinet meetings like ordinary administrative agencies does not fit." The lawyer added that the position "appears to misunderstand how state administration and the judicial function normally work," and warned that "at a time when the judicialization of politics is producing frequent criminal complaints that lead to investigations, this could result in investigations or indictments that take political signals into account." The point, in short, is that while no law bars the heads of the two bodies from sitting in on Cabinet meetings, doing so is undesirable in practice.
