Prosecution: Introduction of Salary Step and Simplification of Class

The “principle of identity of prosecutors,” the hierarchical principle of the prosecution, will be discarded because it can obstruct independent investigations.

At yesterday’s cabinet meeting which was presided over by President Roh Moo-hyun, the government passed a revised bill to discard the hierarchical principle of prosecutors and decided to submit the bill to the National Assembly.

By the principle of identity of prosecutors, all prosecutors of Korea, as constituents of a well-organized hierarchical order, should perform their duties as one entity under the direction and supervision of the prosecutor general.

According to the revised bill, prosecutors do not have to unconditionally obey their superiors and can object to the orders of the superiors when they question legitimacy or fairness of the orders involved in a specific case.

If the bill passes the National Assembly, the prosecution will undergo enormous changes in its chain of command as the organization will put much emphasis on independence of prosecutors.

The prosecution personnel committee was upgraded from an advisory committee to an inquiry commission for fair and transparent personnel management after the cabinet meeting.

The Ministry of Justice said that day it would submit revised bills to the National Assembly by the end of this year to introduce a salary step and simplify the class of positions.

The current four classes of the prosecutor general, the chief high public prosecutor, the chief district public prosecutor and prosecutor will be streamlined to the two classes of the prosecutor general and the prosecutor if the class is simplified.

“Introduction of a salary step and simplification of the class of positions are designed to get rid of a practice of resigning when prosecutors fail to be promoted to the limited position of the chief district public prosecutor, so that they can work as ‘lifetime prosecutors’ without the burdens of competition for job promotion,” a Justice Ministry source said.

Jong-Hoon Lee Jin-Young Hwang taylor55@donga.com buddy@donga.com